The Sin of Silence
by NegativeSpaces
Summary: Santana knows that dodging fists and stashing bodies isn't the glamorous lifestyle that rappers make albums about, but nobody pays them to be accurate. In between making her own way and making sure Puck doesn't say something that'll end his, a chance encounter with a familiar blue-eyed stranger has her all too aware of the sacred virtue of silence. Brittana, Mafia!AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** So, I've been sitting on this for a year, and have decided that it's time for this project to see the light. This _won't_ be a massive multi-chapter fic; I'm expecting it to have 6-8 chapters in its entirety. This is also part of #bfwff because I wanted to contribute _something_ because I'm lazy and never do. Thank you to **LeMasquerade**, as usual, for correcting me on all my terrible crime-related mishaps. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was from the hood.

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**October 27****th****, 2002 / May 2****nd****, 2007**

The first time she meets Brittany S. Pierce, she knows she's fucked.

In reality, she's been fucked for the majority of her short, thirteen year old life. Santana Lopez was not born with the cards in her favour. Daughter of a street-level drug dealer, the years she can remember in the Lopez household were fraught with men coming in at all hours of the night, arguments that shook her flimsy walls, and the dangerous gleam of guns stuffed into the waistband of pants with no belt, three sizes too big. Her clothes sucked up the constant smell of pot and lingered in her hair whenever she decided to go to school—which, even at eight, still wasn't often. Instead she'd hang out with the girls on the block as they taught her the best they could how to survive on the down and dirty streets of the slums in Brooklyn.

Life wasn't easy, but it was liveable. Even that young she'd built up a reputation as being unpredictable and wild, setting off at the slightest hint of insult. Boys of the rival gangs would sneer and push her around until her tiny little foot landed itself between their legs and she ensured that whatever children they would eventually have would be as stunted as their non-existent mental growth. She'd come home with bruises and broken noses but her father would simply shake his head and tell her to stop being street trash.

Life was liveable until the Family came.

All she remembers is the door breaking down under the heavy booted foot of an enforcer and the spray of bullets as they spewed through her little shack she called home. Her limbs tangled in the blankets as she staggered out of bed and stopped in the doorway as she imprinted her foot forever into the carpet with the blood of her brother, slumped up against the wall of the kitchen. It poured from his open mouth and through his ears; to this day she's unsure if she's ever gagged like she did then. They never had a good relationship being so many years apart, and perhaps he liked to beat on her more than was healthy for such a young child, but he was still her _family_. She went to go to him, but recoiled as the dank smell of piss invaded the air.

Instead, the pitiful whimpering cries from the living room drew her attention. Santana padded quietly down the hallway and peered over the threshold from the cover of darkness, the frizzy mess of her hair shadowed in the darkness of night. Through the barred window streetlight poured through and spread itself throughout the room; in it were flashes of dark pools of red, upturned furniture, shattered glass winking delicately in the harsh light. Two men were illuminated in the center with their polished guns gleaming dully, their white skin absorbing the light and teeth bared into grim smiles. Or, one was. The other looked like he was about to vomit.

"Well?" the bigger one asked in a strange voice, kicking her father over and rolling him on his back. "Where is our money, little man?"

He cried out, cradling his side. "I need more time! Just one more week, I swear!"

The one that hit him snorted in a way that reminded Santana of a bull she'd seen, once, when she could go to the zoo. Veins in his neck bulged under the strain. "You said that last week, and the week before. We've gotten tired of waiting."

As the gun was levelled to his forehead, Santana's father managed to spot her lurking in the gloom. She recognized the light in those eyes—she'd seen it before, back when he looked at her in the darkness of her room and let his hands skim across her body, barely grazing the sheets of her bed. She always hated that look. Hungry.

"Wait! I-I have something for you!" He pointed his finger and Santana tried to slink back into the hallway too late; the two enforcers turned and caught her body in the darkness. The smaller one grabbed her by the arm and she hissed and screamed the whole way, wailing on him with her right hand and struggling to free herself. His grip was like iron but clammy, trembling slightly. Afraid. But of what?

The taller one looked her up and down, a scoff vibrating deep in his throat. "This is what you give to us?" He scowled, kicking her father in the temple and letting him roll around in agony. "A little brown girl too young for the brothels? She's nowhere close to the money you owe us!"

"Give her a year, _maybe _two, a-and you could give her to your clients! I promise she's strong for somebody so little!"

He eyed her father with disgust. "You would know, hm?"

The pitiful man on the floor cowered away from his glare, covering his head with his hands. "_Please_ take her... I don't have anything else."

Santana grew up hearing of her lack of worth for as long as she understood words—her mother left the family before she could remember her, leaving her father to pay for a delinquent son and a wailing infant off nothing but the meagre drug-dealer salary (he was a small fish, all things considered, and sometimes they had to go hungry). He resented her for her imagined sins and never passed up a chance to tell her that she'd end up in a ditch or with her legs up by her ears in ten years or so, taking a pounding from some gang-banger to feed her would-be habit. Something in her wanted to prove them wrong, to rise from the mold of her upbringing; she screamed so hard her voice cracked, her foot planting itself between her captor's legs. He crumpled in pain and she had time to wrench her hand from his grip and scramble behind him, her little fingers scrabbling for the knife at his belt. Though she couldn't reach his neck, the girls had taught her a trick—so instead, the point pressed itself into the meat of the man's inner thigh.

"Talk 'bout me like that again and I'm gonna make him all slippery like my _hermano_!" Looking back, she doubts that she was even holding the blade to the right part of his thigh, but it made the big man look at her with new eyes.

He lowered his gun thoughtfully, sweeping his eyes up her lanky frame. "How old are you, girl?"

"Eight," she said sullenly, putting more pressure until a thin line of blood wept from the skin.

"If I told you I was going to kill your father right now, what would you do?"

Santana considered it for barely a second. "I'd put this in his leg and watch him die."

Both bushy eyebrows went up. "With no remorse?"

"I dunno what that means, but I guess not."

He laughed, then, a great booming sound that carried out onto the street. "It might be your lucky day, little man," he said gruffly, smashing his heel into her father's temple and moving away from him. Every step he made was confident and unwavering like some great beast on the prowl—it intrigued her, even early on. The closer he came, the more blood began to pour from under the jeans in her hand until it coated her fingers, sticky and hot, distracting her enough that she didn't notice until he was standing right in front of her.

She braced for the bullet that would sear its way through her skull, but instead, he offered her a hand. "Do you want to go meet somebody special, girl?" he asked not unkindly, his massive fingers outstretched for her to take.

Santana's eyes flitted from her father in a ball to her brother in a pool of blood not too far away, taking in the disarray of her own home. It was dirty and disgusting, and she knew she'd live like this for the rest of her life, fighting to keep the electricity on and the heat out, witnessing drive-bys and home invasions and executions. She narrowed her eyes at him in deliberation.

"Are you gonna call me by my name?"

A hint of a smile played on his lips. "If you want."

The knife clattered to the ground, and her sticky hand took his without another thought. They exited the door that hung off its hinges and were shepherded into a black van with tinted windows; though simple, it was much grander than anything she'd ever been in, and her bloody hands ran cautiously across the seats. There was even a little television embedded in the back of one seat.

Mountain Man came in after her, telling the younger boy to slide in the back so that he didn't bleed all over the leather and ruin everything. Santana saw the scowl the boy shot at him when he wasn't looking, hobbling in and dragging his injured leg behind him until the smell of copper invaded the air they breathed.

Brooklyn whirled by in a blur of streetlamps and lit blocks and Santana watched it all, glued to the city that breathed so vibrantly in its sleep. She'd never been far from her own block and never far from the borough—the closer they got to Verrazano Bridge the more a sense of dreadful excitement filled her, buzzing through her for the first time in her life. She'd always secretly wanted to go on adventures like all those people in the books she pretended she couldn't read instead of being stuck in her poor little home. Perhaps it was through a different medium, but she'd gotten her wish. The ground underneath them changed as they clunked off the bridge and into the suburbs of Staten Island.

Santana threw herself up against the glass to see the large houses as they drove past, eyes glued to buildings three times the size of her tiny home. Green was _everywhere_; Santana had lived in a concrete jungle for the entirety of her life, making one ill-fated trip up to Central Park in order to experience firsthand what nature was like. (She was six and determined to make it on her own. She made it, all right, but night eventually fell and disoriented her. Her cheeks still burn in embarrassment as she remembers crying in the lap of an elderly lady because she couldn't find her way home.) This sector appeared calm, harmless even. What kind of crime family lived in such a soft place?

The further in they went, the more doubtful she got. The graffiti that coloured her neighbourhood in stories and pictures was sparser, the houses acquiring lawns and trees that were neatly kept. Not all the doors had grates on them—in fact, she spied somebody leaving their door _open_ while they did their chores. She frowned. Weren't they worried they were going to be invaded?

Santana turned around to ask, but was cut off by the Mountain Man shuffling around for something.

"Sorry 'bout this, kid," he said gruffly before lunging forward, pinning her easily under the powerful muscle of his calf, deftly tying the scrap of cloth held in both hands over her eyes. She shrieked in outrage and lashed blindly out at him, her fingers catching one of his ears angrily and bringing him towards her with a sharp tug. She underestimated how close his face was, and groaned in pain as his forehead collided with her nose.

Now spewing blood, Santana hardly noticed when they stopped, only that warm air wafted into the van a moment before strong arms picked her up, slinging her over one meaty shoulder and standing back tall. Santana squirmed and clawed and raged with all the words her mind knew to pronounce as she beat her fists against the broad expanse of back presented to her that quickly became wet with her and her brother's blood. They ascended a staircase, and each step knocked the wind from her with the shoulder dug firmly into her abdomen, finally ceasing her screaming for the need to breathe instead. Her captor relished in the brief silence before knocking on an unseen door.

"What is it?" came a muffled voice, irritated.

"Giovanni brought somethin' extra home," replied her carrier, respectfully stopped in front of the door. "Thought you should take a look."

A brief pause. "Enter." It was mildly more curious this time, and Santana spun into disorientation again as she was unceremoniously let down onto the cold hardwood floors. Footsteps sounded close to her, but she snarled and backed away the best she could without her sight, her now bloody teeth bared like an animal.

Breath on her face; sweet like a cigar, warm. She had the presence of mind not to spit and potentially receive a bullet between her eyes, but she did growl in a low rumble, feeling her blood drip and splatter onto the floor.

"Now..." the voice said quietly, "who are you, little one?"

Amidst the sudden explosion of vulgarity, Santana was unaware of the mystery man's lips curling up into a faint smile. That little girl sat vulnerable on the floor, bleeding and blind, and still had the steel to curse out his funny accent with more gusto than he's seen any eight year old do anything. She yelled until her dark cheeks tinged red and her breath came in heaving gasps, a sheen of sweat shining upon her brow. He rose up to his full height slowly and dabbed at his face where specks of her blood had been sprayed against his skin.

"He can keep her," he commanded; his footsteps placed him at his desk where the creak of old leather met her ears. "He'll be in charge of her." She assumed there was nodding, because she was picked up again and placed back over her carrier's shoulder. And with that, she was swept out of the room where they would mend her broken nose and then place a .22 caliber in her hands shortly after.

She calls this the First Time Fucked.

The Second Time Fucked, well... those were much different circumstances.

And it had everything to do with Brittany S. Pierce.

The Pierces had long been good friends of the Family and were treated well, often invited for dinner and get-togethers. Dutch by blood but Italian by honour, they had placed themselves at the table through a stunt of impossible circumstances that Santana had yet to learn. Not that she cared much; she quickly learned that in the Massino family, it was easier not to ask questions.

Being Giovanni's shadow was the only reason she was privy to such things, and she was not about to let it go to waste.

The Pierces were visiting yet again for an evening of dining and recounting old tales—Mr. Pierce was always worse than his wife at holding his liquor and had a rather pink tinge to his cheeks, leaning heavily upon the table and talking conspiratorially with a few soldiers, while the rest of his family chatted with various other members. Santana sat upon the end of the table, her eyes travelling restlessly from one face to another, never stopping anywhere in particular. Loud places like this always make her anxious without fail, even knowing she was in the presence of allies. Ever since she had been introduced to the Massino family she had known the Pierces and their blue, blue eyes that seem to be able to track her every movement. Especially the youngest one, Brittany.

Brittany had something of a... different mindset, known throughout the whole household. Whether it be digging up unicorn fables, switching out seemingly impossible words for each other or concocting these intricate and elaborate theories of the universe in these bright flashes of insight, one could never quite tell what was on her mind. Santana had never spoken a word to her, of course—despite wanting to prove herself with her entire being she feels completely out of place sometimes with her dark complexion and Spanish tongue, and could never quite bring herself to do anything more than smile slightly when Brittany waves her over. At thirteen she's already expanded her reputation into being a cold bitch, but in this life, it could be a good thing.

But this time, Brittany wasn't there. She had wandered off some time ago, bored of the chatter that rose from the rest of the table. Santana had watched her go curiously but refrained from following her for reasons she attributed to being a coward. It wasn't her fault if that girl was really fucking gorgeous to the point of being intimidating, okay?

The table was boring without Brittany, and Santana decided to go see what Giovanni was doing. Even if they had gotten off to a rocky start (murdering her brother and nearly murdering her father was not a solid ground for a friendship) he was the only one that truly and completely believed in her. Though she was too young to be made (and too girlish, and too Hispanic) and kept well out of family affairs, he made sure that she was clued in on everything else that she was allowed to know. He had put in the claim that her mother was Italian—she doubted this was true, just look at her—and because of it she was tolerated by his side, careful eyes and attentive ears soaking up the knowledge her mentor had to offer. She kept herself alive by her resourcefulness and willingness to do what the others refused, be it hazardous to her own safety or not. The first time Giovanni had put a gun in her hand she'd nearly blown it off, much to the amusement of the other boys around, but she quickly showed them that one didn't need to pack down below to pack up above. Her accuracy still needs work (fucking contact lenses) but her speed, she likes to think, is to die for.

Feet kicked up on a nearby table, the hulking man lounged back with a cigar dangling loosely from his mouth. The late summer sun beat upon his browning skin and cast the portion of his face shaded under his hat into darkness—his eyes were closed, unable to see the whites in the gloom. His handgun, ever present, rests stark and menacing on his waist.

She plucked the cigar from his mouth and took a long drag, relishing the greasy smoke in her mouth that crawled with thick fingers against the back of her throat, popping it back between his lips and exhaling in a long, controlled stream before he opened his eyes. His mouth curved into an amused smirk and his massive hand ruffled her hair. "Bored at the adult table, huh?"

She rolled her eyes. "You know how Mr. Pierce can get."

"Full of bullshit?"

"Well..." she didn't want to speak ill of the Boss's favourite family, but, "...yeah."

Giovanni chuckled, shaking his head. Mr. Pierce had acquired an air for dramatics some time ago that never quite diminished; in the presence of alcohol, his wife was unable to keep it in check.

They remained in silence for a moment in the relative peace of the sprawling estate's backyard, the ash from Giovanni's cigar falling from the end. In moments like this it was easy for Santana to picture him as the father she never had; stern but caring, ambitious but comforting. He took no excuses from her, but beat down the people who sneered at her because of her skin before she learned to do it on her own—those first few years were the hardest by far, but Giovanni never let her give up. _I know you have it in you, kid_, he'd say with his hand firm and steady on her shoulder, _you need to show those assholes wrong._

Almost as if reading her mind he blew a trail of smoke at her, grinning when she scowled. "How'd your run go, kid? Accomplish anything with them boys of yours?"

Being too inexperienced to currently be of use to the Family, Santana had found herself in the presence of a group of street boys who mostly roamed the likes of Staten Island and Brooklyn, too far downstate for her to recognize her home neighbourhood. They were hoodrats, true, trash with no future, but that's what she would have been if Giovanni hadn't found her... and what she will be if she doesn't prove her worth.

She shrugged, leaning back so she could see the sky. "It was good, I guess. Nobody saw nothing."

They had crept in just after dark, when the headlights of the owner's car had vanished around the bend. Four of them, crouching around the property, waited in the silence of the block until they were sure he wasn't coming back. Santana was pushed forward into the driveway and she scowled fiercely at the boy who had nudged her, giving him the bird as she crept up to the nearest window and cupped her hands to see into the house. Darkness greeted her—no light flickered from the little television on the stand, no sound drifted down from the upstairs. She strained her eyes the best she could, but for all intents and purposes, it was empty. With a nod from her, Puckerman had moved in, planting his trusty crowbar underneath the frame of the window and straining, the muscles in his arms bulging out in a way that made her nose curl until there was a loud crack and the thing split apart, allowing him to yank it up enough to shuffle Santana inside. She grunted in surprise as he pushed, hands firmly planted on her ass until she managed to wiggle herself into the space.

_You're gonna pay for that later, dipshit._

He simply smiled his infuriating smile and told her to hurry the fuck up.

Santana snuck through the space, her worn converse feather-light on the carpet, silently assessing the area. Sparse furniture, few pictures, run-down. No family. Dipshit lived alone as far as she could tell. Good. It'll be that much harder to replace everything once they trashed it. With a swift yank she pulled the deadbolt and swung open both the door and the grate, beckoning from within. The other three streamed through—shadows in the night.

_A half hour, _somebody said. _A half hour and then we gotta leave._

All of them split off in different directions, and within a few minutes, the place was a mess. A hurricane had swept through the living room and knocked things off the shelves, yanked the drawers open, scattered possessions everywhere. The television had taken a bat to the screen and shattered into millions of tiny shards that sprinkled the carpet like jewels, embedding itself into the soles of its attacker. Karofsky had managed to knock over the refrigerator and send produce flying everywhere, its electrics pulling out in a flurry of sparks.

_You fuckin' moron! _Puck hissed, hitting him on the shoulder. _You want the cops all up on our ass? We're here to trash the place, not fuckin' burn it to the ground!_

Santana rolled her eyes. _Dumbasses, all of them._ While they were occupied with the bottom floor, she moved her way to the top floor where they had yet to bring their destructive presence. Here there were precious few pictures, framed in dusty glasses—a woman much older than her with kind eyes stared out without a hint of accusation. She bit her lip and took it carefully to shield it from the oncoming storm.

She padded into what must have been his bedroom and stole a quick look around, noting he only had the bare essentials in his room. Dresser, almost void of clothing; bathroom, reeking of stale piss; bed, blankets flung to the floor. She scowled and ripped the place apart bit by bit, bringing a wooden bat down on his sparse few belongings until there was nothing left but splinters. In her flurry she'd found herself with a small jewelry box with nothing but cheap little trinkets. Except...

_Found anything? _Karofsky's voice pulled her from her studies and she spun around, sucking in a breath. He looked at her strangely, almost as if he was about to scold a disobedient animal, before she shook her head.

_Nah. He's pretty poor._ She slipped the little treasure she found discreetly into her pocket.

He sneered, kicking over a nightstand. _Good. Piece of shit should think twice before messing with our crew._

Santana scoffed in exasperation, cocking her bat over one shoulder. They weren't a crew yet, not even close. Just a bunch of kids causing shit and thinking they mattered. Puckerman is the only other one that understands they're barely in the little leagues. All the others seem to have inflated visions of grandeur.

_We gonna burn it down? _his eager voice followed her as she thumped down the stairs, haphazardly swinging her bat into the railing as she went. It shattered under her insistent pressure.

_'Course we ain't gonna burn it down, numbnuts._ Puck said from the kitchen, busy loading up with the copious stash of booze found under the sink. _He didn't put Finn in jail, for fuck's sake. We just need to teach him a lesson._ He stuck his nose in a little baggie and recoiled at the stench. _God, San, smell this shit._

She snatched it from him and almost choked at the overpowering smell of weed that hit her nose. Being around so much of it at a young age, she knew it wasn't cheap. How the hell did one little convenience store clerk buy all of this?

_Don't matter now! _Puck exclaimed gleefully as if reading her mind, shoving it in their backpack. _It's ours!_

Finn looked at his watch in alarm. _We gotta bounce, guys. He should be home soon. _But when they turned to leave, Santana stayed behind.

_Give me a minute, I'll be out soon._ She bounded up the steps with her hand stuck in her backpack, rummaging around for the can of spray paint she could hear clinking with the new bottles in her pack. Drawing out the pristine can, she stepped into the bathroom and let her eyes momentarily catch her own reflection in the wall-length mirror, studying her own curling smirk with glee before her picture was covered by the hiss of pink paint as she applied it wildly to the surface. As her hand began to cramp she drew back, shoving the can back where it came from and smiling soundly at the large _snitch_ that now adorned the mirror. Perfect. She ran back down the steps with a grin and met back up with the others.

As they all filed out of the house once they were satisfied their destruction was complete, Santana paused at the doorway to survey the final damage. It was going to take him a long time to come back from this—even longer for him to work up the nerve to try and point a finger to them again. They needed to show that they weren't to be fucked with, young as they were. Finn was only in this for the cheap thrill of being something other than the perfect son to a rich family, and Karofsky because his social skills were lacking for any other endeavour... but her and Puck? Oh, they were going to go so much further than that. She smirked and turned on her heel, letting the gate bang shut behind her.

Giovanni appraised her as she roused from her inner recollection with a satisfied smile, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Anything I should know about?"

Santana dipped her fingers into the pocket of her jacket and handed him her prize—a gleaming class ring crowned with a hefty diamond. Giovanni whistled lowly and turned the thing in his fingers.

"That must be over a grand," he murmured in appraisal, holding it up to let it catch the light.

"One point two, actually," she announced proudly, smirking. "Ricky looked at it for me," she elaborated.

Her mentor's thumb rubbed over it for a few moments. "What's a kid like you gonna do with that much money?" he asked with an amused smile, settling back in his chair. "I already give you a home. If you spend it all on booze I think you'll kill me."

Santana's grin became cunning. "I was gonna give the cut to the Family."

Giovanni's eyebrows raised in silent question, to which she shrugged. "You can never start too early, right?"

He laughed, clapping her on the shoulder. "You sneaky bitch," he said in obvious approval, putting it in his pocket for safekeeping. "I'll make sure it gets to him with emphasis on how _you_ found it." She smiled in delight, plucking the cigar from him again for a celebratory drag. Despite both her gender and ethnicity, it was a definite bonus that the Boss already knew of her existence, both through that night years ago and living with Giovanni and his family. Giovanni himself, being the Boss's most trusted Capo, knew when to give her the extra boosts that her natural state stripped from her.

He grumbled good-naturedly at the sight of his... well, his _ward_, truly, blowing out a thick stream of smoke. Santana was always getting her hands into things that didn't concern her—a prime trait for being useful to the Family. She'd already started a lottery racket at school (he forced her to go nearly every day) where she scammed the kids out of their money with a keen eye and quick mind, forming favours whenever they couldn't quite pay up that day. As time passed so did the debts grow, until her influence in the lives of many of the kids was undeniable. Sometimes she was even _too _smart for her own good, yet he felt nothing but affection for her. He had become the father figure her own disgusting excuse for one could never have been. His wife, despite her full-blooded Italian background, doted on her the best she could. She didn't much like her friends, but Santana had cemented a place in her heart—unwillingly at first, surely, but the girl's rakish charm and unwavering ferocity had quickly earned her a place at the table.

He shook his head; he never intended for another child! "Go on now, I think they need some more liquor at the table," he nudged her up from her seat, taking his now much shorter cigar from her lithe fingers. She snorted in amusement.

"You mean Mr. Pierce drank it all."

"That too," he conceded. "There's a bunch in the crates by the garage. Bourbon, I think."

She nodded, picking up the crowbar from against the wall. Her bat had broken in the ransacking and she was looking for a new item—it could be used both as a weapon and a tool. Convenient. Santana whistled an unknown tune to herself as she wound her way through the large estate the Boss used for dinners such as these, taking a deep breath of the late summer air. It had been a good season so far. Nobody had gone to jail (though Finn narrowly avoided it) and they'd won all the fights they'd been in at the expense of split knuckles and swollen eyes. People were beginning to notice in the schools around Staten Island and even Brooklyn when they walked by—and that kind of recognition was always a good thing. A little fear never hurt.

Still humming, Santana was about to round the corner when a quiet noise caught her ear. She stopped abruptly, muscles tensing as she looked around. (_Enemies are everywhere, Santana,_ Giovanni always said, gravely looking into her eyes. _Always be alert._) Nothing happened for another second but she was patient and then it came again, louder this time. It was the whimper of somebody in pain, followed by a barrage of harsh whispering. Close. She frowned and crept around the corner, crowbar now held firmly in her left hand.

One of the goons hired to guard the premises had pinned a girl against the wall, his large hands roaming underneath her dress and scratching his stubby nails against the skin he found. Judging by the squirming and fearful noises coming from his victim, it wasn't voluntary. She was about to turn away despite the revulsion in the pit of her stomach before her eyes caught the girl's—they were blue. So blue... and so scared. It was then that she took in the delicate fabric of her dress and that silk-spun hair and all at once her teeth bared into a feral grimace and she straightened up, striding towards the two of them.

"Hey, fuckwit!" she called out, barely giving time for him to look over before she swung the crowbar at his face. It shattered his cheekbone with a loud crunch and he cried out in pain, falling over with a thump in the grass. Santana saw his fly was open and sneered in disgust. "Thought you could just take your pick, huh?" she snarled angrily, letting it impact his jaw and leave a great smear of red in its wake. The man muffled a moan of pain and scrambled to his feet with half his face obscured by the blood pouring from his skin.

"Fuckin' bitch!" he roared, speech garbled by the tongue he undoubtedly bit on his way down. With only one eye open his aim was crooked, and Santana had no trouble evading him with her smaller stature and clearer mind. Her weapon connected between his shoulder-blades, this time the curved end, letting it sink deep into his flesh and carve out a sizeable gash. He shrieked and staggered before tumbling to the ground again. Santana wasted no time as he fell.

Her crowbar was brought down again and again onto his face and neck until blood was everywhere; the side of the building and the grass and him and her. It was all over her left side when she had finished, and he was a pulp of a man, gurgling feebly through his broken teeth, a froth of spit and blood sliding from his lips. Both eyes were swollen shut and his nose was crooked at a grotesque angle—if he lived, he could say goodbye to any sort of cheekbones or brow. She was oddly satisfied with her work.

Amidst the heavy breathing and swearing, she'd forgotten Brittany was there until there was a timid touch on her arm. Her head whipped around and they both startled at the movement.

They simply stared at each other for a moment, Brittany taking in Santana's bloodstained appearance, while Santana was a bit more occupied with the fact her dress was rearranged in such a way that she could see a generous helping of what would undoubtedly prove to be a lovely chest.

"I-is he dead?" Brittany asked quietly, her eyes sliding over to the man who had stopped moving. Santana spared him a brief glance and eventually shrugged her shoulders.

"If he isn't, he will be soon." she muttered, trying in vain to wipe the blood from her weapon. There was simply too much of it.

She, who had never delivered more than a few broken bones, had just killed a man. Strangely enough she felt little discord within herself, and no pity for the once-writhing man beneath her. Giovanni had warned her about the people that took a peculiar delight in killing, but there was nothing of anything, only a grim satisfaction that she did what needed to be done to prevent something that (in her eyes) was even worse.

Brittany studied her until she shifted nervously on her feet. "Why?" Brittany asked her, taking a few steps away from the body, probably not wanting to stain her shoes. Santana didn't blame her—it smelled pretty bad.

(If it reminded her of First Time Fucked a few years ago, she didn't say anything. She didn't want her sympathy.)

A shrug. "Because," she said gruffly, stepping away both from the girl and the man. Here she was, standing with the girl she longed so desperately to talk to, and couldn't come up with more than a few simple sentences... god, she was such a dumbass. Santana squeezed her eyes shut and looked away into the distance where the vague sounds of the party were still floating through on the airy breeze. "You, uh, you should..." she gestured to her chest with a vague hand motion, clearing her throat as she got another eyeful. Brittany let out a quiet _oh _of surprise and hastened in righting her dress again but showed no hint of embarrassment in the tint of her cheeks. Once finished, Santana managed to look at her again. "We should go back," she announced roughly, still too occupied with the images of pale, smooth skin to be of any real help.

(God, what was wrong with her? She never acted like this around anybody.)

They wound their way back into the festivities, all of which promptly stopped when they took in her warlike appearance and the girl tagging along at her heels. She pointedly avoided Giovanni's gaze.

Mr. Pierce stood up unsteadily and Brittany ran to her mother who welcomed her with open arms and a hushing, soothing tone. Santana swallowed down that bolt of jealousy that ached down her spine and instead dropped her weapon by her feet where it was hastily whisked away by a guard standing nearby.

"One of your boys is dead," Santana muttered to the one who took her weapon. "Got what he deserved."

Giovanni came up behind her and turned her away so she could go clean up, missing the quiet _thank you_ Brittany said in the process. It would be the last time they talked for another eleven years.

* * *

**July 13****th****, 2007**

The Third Time Fucked, well... let's just say the circumstances were a little different. It had nothing to do with Brittany, and everything to do with Puck.

The two of them had been roaming the streets for weeks now that school was out, unable to find anything productive to do. Santana's lottery racket had taken a pause as she lost contact with the kids who went to school with her, but she wasn't too worried—they almost always came back. Gambling is a dangerous vice to play even at such a young age. And Puck? He'd started getting his hands in the low-level drug dealing business, which inevitably meant that so did Santana. It was interesting how many perfect sons and daughters were desperate to look for a good dealer who had decent shit to sell. So much blackmail, so little time.

Their pockets had swelled with cash, having little to do other than pull off petty robberies and muggings. All the tourists came to New York in the summer and it left them with prime pickings; those that wandered down to the slums in Brooklyn were almost uniformly lost, and none of them suspected a little Hispanic teenager of being anything other than harmless until her buddies slunk out from around the corner and robbed them blind. They flipped through the glories of their earnings, sometimes as much as half a grand per hit, and gave a portion to send off to the Family. Alliances were beginning to be forged, and their group was much too diverse for any of the Black or Hispanic gangs to have any want of them hanging nearby; Santana especially, looked upon as a traitor by men of her own race. Not that she cared about their opinions—they were the kinds of people her father dealt with so long ago, pieces of shit that roamed the streets and were willing to do anything they could to cause discord. They'd even seen one group force their way into an occupied home and leave nothing but corpses and raped survivors in their wake. It was sickening, but it was their reality now.

The others had better things to do, according to themselves, so it was just the two of them as they wandered about in the sweltering sun in search of something for their idle hands to do. Puckerman was boasting yet again at how he was learning how to drive from his big brother (but Santana trusted his driving skills about as much as she trusted Finn with something other than looking stupid) when he stopped dead in his tracks in the deserted parking lot.

"God _damn,_ look at those wheels!" he crowed in delight, running over to the cherry red convertible and smashing his face up against the window. Despite her lack of proficiency with cars, she had to admit it was a piece of art—shining chrome rims, impeccable paint job, plush leather interior. She could only imagine the size of the engine lurking under the hood. Puck waved her over frantically and she came to a stop beside him where he was wearing his classic devil-may-care smirk.

"You wanna boost it?" he asked deviously, his fingers drumming on the glass. It was a fucking _gorgeous _car, and the money they would pull in would give Giovanni a heart attack, but she knew it was way out of their league. Everything about it screamed rich and powerful. So she bit her lip, shaking her head as she peered further into the interior.

"Nah, too risky. There's a sweet GPS on the dash though. See it?" Puck narrowed his eyes and grinned as he spotted the same thing.

"Yeah, that's a good three fifty right there. State of the art." He wormed himself out of his sweatshirt quickly while Santana looked around, winding it around his right hand into a little cocoon. Without giving her time to react, he straightened up and cocked his fist back, slamming it into the window. It shattered under his side-handed blow and the alarm immediately began to wail. Santana flinched, covering her ears as she looked wildly around for any signs of trouble.

"Fuckin' hell, Puck!" she hissed, glancing back at him to see him clamp his hand around the device. "Give me a bit of warning first!"

He grunted and gripped the base of the GPS, his fingers digging into the holder at the bottom. "Loosen up, Lopez," he huffed, straining. "Nobody's around for ages."

But the car alarm was obviously piercing to anybody within the area, and Santana looked back up in time to see a single beat cop turning the corner at the exact same time Puck managed to yank the thing from the dash. She cursed under her breath and slapped Puck on the back to get his attention, heartbeat pounding in her ears. "Puckerman, we gotta _go_!" she yelled, and felt his muscles clench when he caught sight of the man sprinting towards them, his head tilted awkwardly to speak into his radio. Of course they had to get the attention of a cop who seemed to be in physically perfect condition. Puck struggled his way back into his sweater and they took off as fast as they could, wheeling through the back alleys and hearing the ever present slap of boots behind them. Their feet tore through gardens and they launched themselves up chain fences, scrabbling for grip and stumbling over themselves when they landed.

It was obviously a losing battle. They kept pace with each other, but the cop was slowly gaining despite the heavy belt that weighed him down and his constant yelling at them to stop. Santana could run for much longer, but Puck was faster with his extra muscle, and she knew that when they reached a towering fence much over their heads that she had to make a decision. It was a shitty one, but it was the right one.

"I'm gonna boost you up," she huffed, looking right into his face, "and you're gonna hop the fence and run the fuck home. You got that?"

He looked at her for a moment in alarm, "But that means—"

"I _know_ what that means, dipshit, but both of us don't have to get caught. Get it somewhere safe and hurry the fuck up or else all this self-sacrificing shit will have been for nothing." Puck sighed and stepped into her waiting hands, giving him the extra lift he needed to get a head start. As he was worming his way over the top she decided to try and go after him in a last-ditch effort to really not regret this in the morning, but there were hands grasping at the back of her shirt and throwing her to the ground where she landed with a winded grunt.

Puck was staring at her from the other side, GPS grasped loosely in one hand. She could only see the shadows of his face from under his hoodie but his expression was clear. She snarled in irritation, jerking away from the strong hands that rolled her onto her stomach. "Go, moron!" He took off in a flash and she finally relented, putting her head down on the concrete as her hands were yanked roughly behind her back and cuffed with cold metal.

"You just made a big mistake, kid," came the gruff voice from behind her, pulling her up into a standing position. People peered out from their windows to see what the commotion was about and Santana's cheeks burned in embarrassment as they took in her state.

"I ain't mistakin' shit, pig," she sneered, stumbling a little as they make the detour onto the street where a cruiser waited. No sign of Puck. The cop pressed her up against the hood as he rattled out her rights and patted around her baggy sweatpants, pulling out a pack of gum, a few hairties, and a couple of crumpled dollar bills that had escaped from her wallet. She mourned the loss of her money and the packet of cigarettes he found in her back pocket. Fuckin' Puck, telling her to carry his shit.

"Lopez, huh?" The cop tapped her student card on the hood of the car thoughtfully. "Have I seen a Lopez before?"

"The wrong one," she grunted, stumbling a bit when he moved her.

As he sat her in the backseat of the police car, the cop crouched down and made sure Santana was listening, to which she responded with non-committal hums, her eyes locked somewhere far in the distance. This was the first time she got into major trouble with the law outside from a few spats that never went anywhere, and she knew that the price-tag was going to be a hefty one. Not only had the cop seen them breaking into the car and removing the GPS, but they had run from him. Because Puck escaped there was the added fact that they couldn't return the property to the owner and possibly reduce her sentence. Santana sighed. Giovanni was going to yell himself hoarse for this.

After he had finished droning, Santana fixed him with a bored expression. "Can I have that phone call now?"

He grunted in exasperation and unlocked her cuffs for a brief moment so that she could reach around in front, locking them again as he shoved a clunky cell into her hands. It rung shrilly in her ear for a few moments and she swallowed nervously, shifting on the leather seat, before a familiar voice picked up.

"Hello?" was the cheerful reply on the other end, belonging to Rita, Giovanni's wife. A faint smile, however pained, brought itself to Santana's lips.

"Hey Rita," she said quietly, glancing suspiciously up at her hovering guard. "Is Giovanni there? I got some bad news."

There was a silence for a moment on the other end. "You really need to talk to him?"

"Yeah."

"Give me a second." She could hear footsteps on the other end, followed by a knock on the door. Moments later after some hushed conversation, her mentor's voice came on the line and she felt her tense muscles beginning to unwind despite the situation.

"Santana? What happened?" Rita had obviously told him something was up by the tone of his voice. Santana bit her lip nervously.

"I got picked up by the cops for breaking into a car," she said, bracing for the yelling that never came. Instead, after a heavily exhaled breath, Giovanni's voice was still measured.

"Alone?"

"No, P—" she clamped her mouth shut and cleared her throat, turning away from the cop's curious eyes. "He was with me, remember? He came by this morning."

"He there?"

"No." She felt a hint of pride at announcing it. "They lost him."

Giovanni tapped his fingers in agitation against the wooden table in his home for a few moments before nodding decisively. "You know your bail?"

A theft like this would probably only be a misdemeanour, along with breaking the window and fleeing from police... she shrugged helplessly, clearing her throat again in aggravation. "No, not yet. Couple hundred maybe?"

He sighed from the other end of the line, and Santana heard the distinct sound of his neck cracking into place. "I'll meet you at the station, okay? Don't talk to anybody—don't even tell them what you had for lunch. Keep your mouth shut and cooperate." He put heavy emphasis on that and she saw his eyebrows going up in her mind's eye. "It'll all be over before you know it."

"Okay. Um, thanks."

"Don't mention it, kid. See you soon." The line went dead and Santana handed the phone off to the impatient officer. "We can go now." She swung her legs into the cruiser and slouched down in her seat, leaning her forehead against the window and staring blindly out the side as the scenery ran by, much reminiscent of the first time she was picked up by the very family she'd grown to love.

Santana and Puck had been wandering Queens of all places, somewhere rarely touched because of the distance between them—but having nothing better to do meant they were wandering further than usual in hopes of finding a lucky break. She's just glad she left her dusters at home.

All too quickly they pulled up to the department at the center of the borough, where she glowered up at the bricked front with distaste. They'd walked by it a few times; the four of them joking about what it would be like to be locked up there with the rest of the criminals waiting for their dues. It was never her intention to find out quite what it was like.

She was marched up through a side door, where the officer that had taken her in hunched down and spoke into a little speaker until a buzzer sounded and the door swung open. Santana stared down the white-washed hallway with trepidation, but she wasn't allowed simply to gawk. "This is where you'll get booked," said the officer, ushering her along with a firm hand planted between her shoulder-blades."Fingerprints, mugshot, the works."

A mugshot? Santana felt a thrill of something—was that excitement?—course down her spine as she swept her eyes over the booking area. Men and women alike waited in plastic chairs to be called up; some were dressed in the grey prison gear, others in their work clothes. It ranged from drunks swaying heavily on the spot, mumbling softly to themselves as they entertained whatever new thought popped up into their addled mind, to large and mean looking men who grinned lecherously as she was pushed past them. She sneered at them in disgust, narrowing her eyes when they pointedly swept their gaze down her body. One in particular was unnerving, his overly large glasses giving him an owlish appearance as he smirked, full of oil, and stared right where her growing chest had begun to swell. Santana boiled in rage, lunging forward with a growl.

"_Puta!"_ she yelled, struggling against the officer's iron grip now across her shoulders. "You want to come do that where I can reach you, huh? You want to see if you can get away with it then?" She was ushered past them and into a small holding cell far away from any prying eyes, but she still snarled and fought to get back up. Her captor said something into his radio; moments later there was a hulking man entering her vision, keeping her down with a firm hand placed over her sternum.

"Slow down there, girlie," the man said sternly, blocking her view of the outside hallway. Santana twisted away from his hand, scooting down the bench the best she could with her hands still locked out in front of her.

"Keep your fucking hands off me, pig," she spat, shaking hair from her face. The officer scowled—the lines in his face seemed to take on a life all their own.

"That's _Officer Tanaka_ to you."

"Says who?" she said airily, glaring at the wall.

"Says the law!" he exclaimed in exasperation, peeking out of the hallway to ensure none of the other offenders had gotten rowdy after the little demonstration.

Santana shot an obvious eye-roll and turned her body from him; she had no doubt that acting like this would make her life harder, but at this point her ultimate, if childish, goal was to irritate as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. She was no coward.

Officer Tanaka sighed, running a hand through his greasy hair. "I don't have time for this. I'm going to take you in for processing, and there's shit you can do about it. After that your guardian will come pick you up and we'll fill him in. Can you behave for a few hours?"

He was met with silence. After a moment he shrugged and lifted her to her feet.

"Fine by me."

They herded her through the hallways, almost dragging her when she caught sight of the creep in the glasses again, until she was escorted into a white room with a large expanse of wall covered by a height system. She felt ill at ease in a place with so many uniforms, the navy blue irritating her eyes. Santana bristled when they guided her into position but said nothing, unlocking her cuffs to hand her a board with her name and the date written on it. The flash went, and she stared defiantly into the camera, her chin cocking back on instinct. It's a shame her contacts were making her eyes so red, but a mugshot was never intended to be a beautiful thing in the first place.

They turned her to the side for another picture and she stole a subtle glance at the wall, where her height read five foot and three inches. She grimaced internally—even at thirteen she was still so _small_. Her trash father and his shitty genes were to blame, surely; her brother was so much taller at fifteen when he died. In a few years, she'll be older than he ever was.

(That's just the way life is around here—you don't want to overtake the ones older than you, but it happens far too often to be a mistake.)

Officer Tanaka called her out and grabbed her hands roughly, rolling each of her fingers in black ink and pressing them firmly to the sheet in front of her. She leaned on one hip and sighed as they asked her a barrage of medical questions. _Asthma?_ No. _Heart problems?_ No. _Blood pressure?_ Normal. _Any communicable diseases?_ Like? _Tuberculosis, HIV, bronchitis? _Nope, clean. _Anything that requires medication, even an STD?_ No, I've never had sex. (That earned her a suspicious stare from Tanaka, and her jaw clenched in an effort not to snap at him.)

Between all these steps was the waiting—ever-present and as crippling as the last session. Santana watched the clock drain away in agony as each little minute slipped by slower than before.

Once she was given a clean bill of health they let her back into the little cell she was originally placed in, unlocked her cuffs, and shut her door with a smirk and a clang. Santana groaned and draped herself over the wooden bench attached to the wall, stretching out her aching feet and crossing her hands behind her head. Some of those drops from the fences had been a bit high for somebody of her... inferior stature.

"Fuckin' Puck," she grumbled aloud, scowling up at the tiled ceiling. He was always getting them into shit that was too hard to get out of. The fuck was he thinking, breaking into such a sweet ride without letting her be lookout? Kids that get too cocky in this game get caught early and locked up for a long time—she can only imagine what would have happened to her if they'd tried to boost it. She wouldn't be let out until she was too old and grey to even think about running again. One arm flung over her eyes, she tried to force herself to sleep, but the bench was hard and her heartbeat still uneasy, trapped in this place that wasn't her own. For all of her Family's rite of passage, she didn't really want to go to juvie yet, she wasn't old enough. Give her a few more offences under her belt and then she'll talk.

If this was what jail was like, maybe she would die from boredom long before getting shanked or turned into somebody's bitch (please, like that would happen). Santana would always tease Finn—mercilessly, ruthlessly, uncontrollably—because he always kept a tennis ball in his pocket for something to do in those times where they'd camp outside a house and wait, the dull thwock against the ground the only steady sound in the air. He'd go red as she sneered that he couldn't go a few minutes without balls in his hands, but shit, what she'd give for something to throw around and disturb the eerie silence settled about her shoulders. She grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut until bright flashes of light danced around her vision and she repeated a quiet mantra of _go the fuck to sleep_.

After a while she must have succeeded, for the clang of the door startled her back into the waking world from where she was dreaming of an unending maze of back alleys and the boom of footsteps that shook the world underneath her feet from behind her, heart pounding as she could never pull away until a massive hand had clamped itself over her mouth and yanked her into the shadows. Santana blinked her contacts back into place and sat up, shooting a confused glare at her original captor who stepped into her cell. "Time to go," he announced, waiting for her to stand up before telling her to put her hands behind her back and slapping on another pair of handcuffs. (She's not sure she'll ever get used to them cutting into the soft skin of her wrists. It feels like shame.)

They wound their way through the building until they reached a different, wider room, and Santana nearly collapsed with relief as Giovanni's broad profile made itself known in the emptiness of the space. His eyes turned to her and softened, silently folding her into his arms.

"I fucked up," she mumbled into his shirt, pressing her face against his huge chest and relishing the smell of aftershave that lingered in all his clothing. He held her face close to him with one massive hand cradling her temple, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

"I know. We'll sort this out together."

The clink of her handcuffs was foreign as they released, letting her arms drop limply to her sides. Santana closed her eyes for a moment and sighed, unwilling to step out of her mentor's protective embrace. (Sometimes she just needs a fucking hug, okay? Nothing wrong with that.) A voice all too soon penetrated the calm atmosphere, however, and she felt his muscles clench up under her cheek.

"Who's this lovely young lady?" she cracked open one eye and glared as disdainfully as she could at the man before them, smart in a suit and a smile entirely too greasy. His presence just slid on her like oil that complimented the hair so slathered in product it appeared permanently frozen in time.

Giovanni pulled her away but kept one heavy arm slung over her shoulders while Rita protectively stood behind her. "Prosecutor Schuester," he said tightly with a stiff nod. Santana narrowed her eyes; she'd never seen him around when Giovanni held Family meetings. "This is my ward, Santana."

Schuester's eyebrows raised and a curious grin split his lips into a surprised grimace. "Your ward? I wasn't aware you were deemed as a fit recipient for the title of guardian."

He bristled at the obvious challenge. "The court obviously thought so."

"Ah, of course," Schuester flicked through a few pages in the file he held, "was that because you couldn't get full custody?"

"We will soon enough."

Santana looked up at him in surprise—adoption? She'd heard nothing of her own father since that night five years ago, except for him appearing a few days later to drop off her things and signing the papers that needed signatures. For all she knew, he had done what needed to be done and written himself out of her life nearly as quickly as her brother had been taken from theirs—all as well, he was probably rotting somewhere in jail for twenty years once his loyalty issues caught up with him in a spectacular crash of flesh on metal.

She bared her teeth as she was languidly looked over by the lawyer in front of her—lawyers were dirty creatures, especially the ones that worked with crime in the poorer parts of town. If they weren't owned by the various gangs and families that controlled parts of the neighbourhood, they sought nothing but the highest bidder seeking for their own kind of redemption. Every single one she'd ever met had made her skin crawl as they searched for ways to let the barest scum of the earth walk free.

She might be a criminal in the making, true, but there are some things that are inexcusable.

"Figured she wasn't yours, anyway. She's a bit too dark for somebody of your... superior genes, isn't she?" That fucking, arrogant, falsely skinned piece of shit—

Giovanni placed one firm hand on her sternum and pushed her back and out of range with the weight of his palm heavy in its warning. "If that clever insult is all, Prosecutor, we'll be on our way," he said, careful of the other officers watching. "I believe we have a detention hearing to get to." Officer Tanaka, who had been watching the resulting battle of wills with interested eyes, jumped at the statement.

"Oh, sure. Figure we'll do it now, yeah?" he explained earlier that the actual sentencing would be much, much later, having to go through a bunch of other processes Santana had already long deemed useless shit. She groaned quietly and followed Giovanni as they were taken from the precinct and into a little courtroom where she was pulled off to the side by a woman with a stern facial expression and gorgeous brown hair who explained that she would be her lawyer, and, for the love of God, to sit down, shut the fuck up, and let her do her job. When Santana asked what would happen if she refused, the woman said she would beat her with a wooden stick. Wisely, Santana kept her mouth shut.

Her lawyer, whose last name turned out to be Corcoran, commanded an unflinching confidence as she argued for Santana's ability to stay at home before arraignment, which only turned out to be a few hours in total. She and Giovanni went back for many years—working together, bailing him out of messes much like this one. It was only natural when he was finally a made man, she became a trusted associate.

Despite Schuester's lingering presence at the back of the courtroom, an agreement for Santana to return home was struck on condition that she came for arraignment at 9 a.m. the following day.

"She'll be here," Giovanni promised, voice grave, and it sent chills up her spine.

On the way back to Staten Island in Giovanni's hefty truck, Santana propped her chin in her palm and silently studied her mentor in the rear view mirror. The set to his brows was unwavering but not as disappointed as she thought they'd be.

"Who was that joker at the precinct?" she asked him curiously. "It looked like you knew him."

Giovanni sighed heavily, adjusting his mirror so he could look at her with the piercing eyes his family was known for. (But never as revealing as that one set of blues that seem to strip her down to her barest bones, clean of flesh and sinew alike.) "That was William Schuester, a favourite of the NYPD and a royal pain in the ass. He's caused me problems in the past."

He never talked much about his stints in jail—he'd only done time twice, a rarity for somebody of his status, and each held a sentence of only a few years. Both were also before she met him, so there was never much reason to talk about them.

"What kind of problems?"

The warning stare delivered upon her was a reminder that for all her budding beginnings, she wasn't near ready to hear things like that yet.

They arrived at home not soon after, Santana immediately being bowled over by Puck and his crushing hug as he swept her up and spun her about the room. She let out a rather undignified yelp and squirmed in his hold until she kneed him in the crotch and he dropped her in pain.

"These morons sat here and waited for you forever." Theresa, Giovanni's niece, complained fondly. "They almost ate us out of house and home!"

Santana smiled and ruffled Puck's new mohawk in a completely dorky manner. "Aw, did you miss me?"

"Can it, Lopez," he grumbled as he swept it back into place. "I wanted to make sure the pig didn't kill you or some shit. What happened after that?"

"I believe I have a better way of explaining," Shelby Corcoran interrupted as she barrelled into the house without knocking. Despite the late hour she looked as unperturbed as ever, smartly straightening out her blouse and turning to Giovanni expectantly. "If you'll let them sit in on this little meeting, I think we should go over Santana's options."

Everything was moving so entirely fast for her. Despite living in the city that never slept, she ached to just pause for a second and stop the rollercoaster that roared just outside her head. Everything was eerily calm inside now, frozen, suspended in the disbelief that she couldn't possibly be headed for somewhere tougher than where she's from.

They followed Shelby to the kitchen table where she spread out a file over her desk—Santana's mugshot stared back out at them, her eyes dark and menacing with the cocky tilt of her jaw. She looked older than she was used to, meaner.

(She finally saw what other people did when they looked at her.)

(Is that what Brittany saw when she looked at her?)

Puck made a comment on how completely badass she looked, but she no longer felt the same sentiment.

Shelby spent her time explaining a few basic things and bringing the others up to date before running facts with her and Puck. Time, place, item. Her face flickered into a ghost of amusement as Puck sheepishly brought into light the GPS hiding in his backpack before looking it over and frowning. Of course they had to pick one of the most expensive ones on the market.

"Well..." she hesitated, her fingers running over the ink for a few moments before sighing. "I hate to say it, Santana, but you look like you're fucked. They've got a witness, a broken window, a missing system, fingerprints and fleeing arrest. You've got a dubious past and a guardian whose been arrested before."

"But she wasn't the one that actually stole it," Puck argued back. "Don't that count for some shit to them?"

"In the eyes of New York juvenile court? That "shit" counts for less than nothing, Noah," she replied, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "She was still there acting as look out, still ran, and was the one that made sure you got away with the goods. For all they know, she was the one that smashed the window and they'll now add property damage to that theft."

He frowned for a second before his eyes lit up with an idea—Santana smiled. It made him look younger, boyish. It reminded her of being ten years old and ruling the jungle gym with him and his messy mop of hair always curling into his eyes, coupled with his big, gap-toothed smile.

"She didn't do it, though. What if she denied it and you could prove it?" he proposed, but was quickly shut down.

"I ain't talkin' to the pigs," she immediately said with a scowl, crossing her arms. A life of silence had been drilled into her head since she was young—even though they had never said it to her directly, _Omertà _(_live by silence and die by vengeance _she mumbled to herself late at night when nobody was around to hear) was something impossible to break. "What's gonna happen if I take the fall?"

"Honestly?" Shelby looked directly at her and in her she saw the life of an attorney swallowed whole by the corruption of the system and the inability to mend all wounds, no matter how menial or crude. "Juvenile detention. It might be a first offence, but your behaviour isn't consistent with somebody who's remorseful and willing to stop stealing."

Her heartbeat rattled in her ears. "Are you sure?"

"Almost completely."

The room went silent for a moment as they took in Santana's blank reaction; she inhaled once, twice, the rush of air leaving her lungs in a steady stream before she nodded silently. "I'm going to bed." They watched her mount the stairs with an expression she saw rarely and yet too often.

That night she leaned from her windowsill and let thick, spicy smoke curl from her lips languidly, the sizzle of the cigar being swallowed by midnight traffic. She watched the pulse of the city's industrial heartbeat with impartial eyes and let herself wonder where Brittany was sleeping that night. She entertained the thought that maybe they were watching the same violent rush of lives clashing outside their windows, completely oblivious to the other, joined together by the web of veins that wind themselves through the city and connect all occupants together into one singular, breathing being. The thought soothed her enough to let her lay Giovanni's cigar on the ashtray and crawl into bed despite the buzzing drone in her mind that kept her from sleep.

(But she still dreamed of blue eyes and grew restless, hating these thoughts she couldn't control. Not knowing what she was doing made it worse as her mind filled in the blanks that her body yearned for until she, secretly, was all she breathed. Santana glimpsed her once before her sentence and they smiled like two people who shared a secret.)

Her days were filled with court dates and staying locked down at home. Giovanni understood her need to roam the streets, but violating a court order was something he didn't want for her. Being able to sleep in her own bed was luxury enough for a girl who had to fight in order not to wait in a cell for the final call of the judge.

Shelby was around regularly, going over the new information with a calm, steady hand, and a voice that translated legal jargon into something Santana's teenage mind could understand. She had pleaded guilty to petty theft and eluding arrest on foot—destruction of property was to be added onto that, but Shelby had successfully argued that glass would have stuck to her sweater if it had been her that broke the window and the charge was dropped. Her arraignment went by almost too fast for her to process, but she remained firm until the day of sentencing came and the true reality of the situation came down around her.

It was a Tuesday when they went into court for the last time. Santana had donned her glasses rather than her contacts, much to her displeasure, the frame sitting heavily upon her nose. Flanked by Giovanni and Shelby they had entered when summoned and she peered up at the aging man perched upon what she thought a throne who looked down at her in obvious contempt.

(Shelby had cursed when she heard who would be overseeing her case but refused to say why. Santana filled in the empty spaces.)

"Miss... Santana, is it?" he shuffled through the papers on his desk like he didn't already know everything about her, her life laid out before him like some sad story nobody bothered to save her from. "You are aware that these charges are fairly serious?"

_Why? A few hundred dollars to a man that owns that kind of car is nothing._

"Yes, Your Honour," she muttered quietly, fighting to keep her arms from crossing. Shelby drilled holes into her temple from afar, scalding.

He studied her through squinted eyes—he'd seen too many like her, youth who thought themselves tough until a gun was pressed to their head and their life caught up to them in a spray of blood against a brick wall in a lonely, abandoned neighbourhood where nobody was there to comfort them as they died.

"If we were to recover the system, Santana, your charges would be lessened for cooperating. I see you had a friend with you that the police were unable to apprehend?"

Another _Yes, Your Honour_, almost growled, had his eyebrows raising.

"Where is the device, Santana?"

She shook her head stubbornly, jaw clenching until the muscles were visible from under her skin. Under his careful scrutiny she was trembling with a barely-suppressible _something_, seething at the pitying eyes he put upon her as another life already written off to rot.

"Answer the question," somebody said, and her nails dug deep into the flesh of her arms.

"I don't know, _Your Honour,_" she grumbled through gritted teeth, glaring up as defiantly as she could with the glasses that got in the way of her stare. "I don't have it."

From the back Shelby closed her eyes as Santana sealed the lid to her own coffin—but what could she expect? The girl was loyal, perhaps to a fault, and desperate to prove she was worth the chance she was given.

"Very well," the judge said, leaning back in his seat and sorting her files back into order. "We, as the responsible and law-abiding adults of this city, must show the youth of today that crime is not the answer for tomorrow." His voice was colder all of a sudden. "Santana Lopez, I sentence you to no less than thirty days in Juvenile Detention, after which time you may be released." The crack of the gavel made her flinch and the world was underwater—the tension went and made her slack with disbelief. "Do think about your choices while inside, won't you?"

Shelby placed a regretful hand on her shoulder and Giovanni embraced her from behind, his cheek pressed to her head.

Three weeks before school started once again, she headed to the imposing Taberg Residental Center four hours away. Santana realized that she should stop counting her milestones with metaphors. She'd be fucked so thoroughly by the end of her lifetime that she'd never be able to walk again.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **The saega continues... for those of you confused about her age, she's thirteen in this one. I'm going by her on screen age, so in 2013 she'd have been 18/19, whatever it was. Thanks to **LeMasquerade** as usual for updating me on prison life and shooting down my dumb, uncultured ideas. Remember where Santana put that can before?

* * *

**August 9t****h****, 2007**

For somebody who'd never been outside of New York City, Santana saw more trees in the four and a half hour drive to Taberg than she had in her whole life. She was strangely preoccupied with the scenery that smelled like warm grass and cow shit—an unappealing combination, but miles better than thinking about the shackles that bound her limbs together in a way humans were never meant to sustain. Chains ran from her wrists and her legs to eventually join together, prompting an awkward shuffling gait that had her almost tripping over herself as she crawled into the van waiting out back to whisk her away. She'd barely caught a glimpse of anybody she knew before she headed off to Who The Fuck Knows, USA. And she was going to be stuck with her glasses for a whole month. Fuck.

The sole other occupant of the cramped space was a burly officer who smelled strangely like a cologne much too expensive for somebody of his payroll. It spread out into all four corners of the place until Santana capitulated out of agony and put herself as prone on the bench as she could with her chains, hiding her face in the wood to escape the smell.

Before being shuttled in, Shelby had managed to catch her for a few moments. Santana had never heard of Taberg, but Shelby had, its setting infamous for the high rate of violence against both residents and staff.

"It's only limited security," she had tried to console the teen several times, "don't piss anybody off and your stay won't be that bad." But after carefully looking around she had covered Santana's hands with her own through the bars and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "A lot of those kids are from New York City and they're doing much harder time than you," she cautioned. "Be careful who you try to make friends with."

_I don't need friends,_ Santana had grumped right back, caught up in the moment of trying to be cool and collected while secretly on the verge of passing out.

The van wound its way through a countryside she didn't even know existed, passing indifferent animals and large tractors growling in the mid-morning air as the farmers did their rounds. It was all rather quaint, in a sense; Santana could have watched it for the entirety of her drive, but was instead caught up in a staring match with a little kid in the car next to them. She refused to look away as they glared at each other with undisguised hostility the entire way there.

A sharp corner was turned and hid the van away from the general populace—Santana leaned back in her uncomfortable seat in triumph.

The feeling didn't last.

While some facilities attempt to distract from the unfortunate fact that residents will be rotting away inside their walls, sometimes for years, Taberg was an awkward mix; secure while attempting to be welcoming. Towering chain-link tipped with razor wire was the first barrier to cross as they made their way into the compound, crawling through manually swung gates and crunching over thrown gravel. Santana nearly fell from her bench as they turned right and finally approached one of three bricked buildings before coming to a screeching stop by the doors. Everywhere she looked was the constant looming presence of barbed wire and men who were much, much bigger than her. Strangely enough, there was more grass in the enclosure than she'd seen the entire time she lived in Brooklyn.

_Limited security my ass._

They shuffled her indoors and stripped her of everything she owned, socks and all. The man that patted her down was impartial and his hands quick, fleeting; his touch still sent revulsion through her and she flinched away as he went for her front. After discerning that, no, she wasn't hiding a weapon of mass destruction up her ass, they led her to a tiled room with two identical shower heads and a stack of clothing in the corner.

"Strip down," they commanded, and her cheeks burned as she pulled off her court clothing, handing it to them only to be ushered under the stream of water. She sputtered, wiping the spray from her glasses, and glared at the shadow she could see from around the corner. "You have five minutes, kid," the shadow said, gesturing to the little shampoo bottles within her reach.

To spite them, Santana took seven.

Freshly showered and dripping water down her back, she wrung out her hair and wrestled herself into the oversized shirt and sweatpants before stepping into the jumpsuit offered. It was a light red and bared JUVENILE across her shoulder-blades mockingly, the sleeves slipping past her wrists and rubbing against her palms. Her glasses were foreign upon her nose and made her feel gangly and awkward.

"Don't you guys have a smaller one? I'm drownin' in this," she huffed as they took her back with them through another corridor, white sneakers slapping against the tiles and the equally white laces clashing horribly with her complexion.

One of her guards—a woman who looked more like a _thing_ than a person—snorted and towed Santana along regardless of her resistance. "No use making a big hoopla about nothing, girl. That's the smallest one we've got."

(Babies this small shouldn't be in jail in the first place.)

They took her through the halls that looked all the same, stopping eventually in front of a large metal door. It was the only thing with any semblance of uniqueness, its uniformity marred by the blocky WARDEN punched into the brass plating. Two other girls were sitting in chains beside the door, one looking worried and the other casually gnawing on what appeared to be a fist-sized chunk of gum.

Her guard sighed. "In trouble again?" the girl slobbering on her hunk of gum smiled sweetly and shrugged her shoulders.

"What can I say, Ms. Hagberg? Nobody can resist the Motta charm." Santana eyed her warily; she had to be younger than her. The jumpsuit she was wearing was even larger.

"Damn troublemakers," Hagberg grumbled. "You been seen yet?"

A massive bubble blown, precariously close to exploding all over each of them. "Yup."

Her guard blinked slowly, obvious baffled. Santana hid her smirk poorly in the crook of her shoulder.

"Then move out. Hanging around like a stray dog ain't going to get you no scraps."

"Nope." As if possessing a third lung, the tiny girl sucked that infuriatingly pink wad of gum back into her mouth without harm. "Mama told me to hang around and wait for you. I'm supposed to be a guide or something."

Hagberg sighed and shook her head, muttering something about _hooligans_ as she pounded her knuckles on the door in front of them. It swung open a moment later and Santana was pushed into the room, hearing an undignified yelp as Hagberg stuck out her arm and yanked Motta in after them.

The room was sparse in furniture, but the walls were decorated with pictures and photographs—from intricately framed and professional looking shoots of the prison to hand-drawn sketches with names signed in scrawl at the bottom. They gave life to an otherwise imposing space, highlighted by the single metal chair seated before a heavy oak desk. A woman hunched over it, her styled hair shadowing her face, hand furiously scribbling upon a sheet of paper. Santana was sat down—rather abruptly—in the seat and stayed awkwardly fidgeting until the woman looked up.

In retrospect, she looked nothing like the warden of a prison. Her dark skin was flawless and her nails manicured, her hair swept over her forehead. Being surrounded by various medals from unknown factions and accomplishments, however, made her no less imposing.

"Santana, I'm guessing?" she asked, setting her pen down and fixing her with an unwavering stare. The girl nodded and raised her chin in defiance though her insides were rioting against her. A ghost of a smile appeared on the warden's lips.

"No need for that, chickie. I've stared down girls that could twist you into a teeny little pretzel and use your hair as floss for teeth that would make a dentist cry."

A silent beat passed before Santana bit her lip and deflated in her seat, slouching a little bit lower than her usual posture would allow.

"That's better." She laced her hands in front of her. Santana fixed her gaze on the smooth skin of her pale palms and the deep wrinkles that ran through them and betrayed her age; they were strong hands that boasted a lifetime of no compromises. She clenched her own fists and wished for the same. "Now, I'm not sure how much you heard on the trip here, but you're at the Taberg Residental Center for Girls in... well, you guessed it, Taberg. There are about twenty girls here at any time from ages thirteen to seventeen—Miss Motta here is an exception at twelve."

Santana raised her eyebrows in surprise and glanced over to the girl who was now waving cheerfully at her from her position in the corner. Something about her face was familiar...

"I, myself, am the Matron. You're all supposed to call me Warden Washington or something dusty like that, but then I feel older than Hugh Hefner when he realized that he almost hired his granddaughter as a bunny. Most of the girls around here just call me Mama."

"Like that movie?" Santana asked curiously, squinting. There was some resemblance if you took away the tracksuit and added some weight.

Mama smiled, obviously pleased at being linked to Queen Latifah. "Exactly like the movie."

This was starting to feel less like jail and more like a visit to distant relatives. Santana rubbed her eyes tiredly from under her glasses and took a moment to assess if she should bother delving further into this; a snarky _if you're good to Mama, will she be good to you_ wobbled on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed it down instead. She still had _some_ measure of self-preservation.

"You're only here for a month, so you shouldn't get too comfortable in that seat," Mama said, startling her from her musings. "Fortunately for you lights are going out pretty soon, so you've got a little while to settle in. Life here isn't terribly complicated or difficult if you do what you're told." She leaned forward in her seat, pushing what looked like a map towards the middle of the desk. "Wake-up is at seven o'clock sharp, and breakfast is at seven thirty. Class starts at eight, but only being here for a month won't teach you much—provided you don't come back." The steely warning stare she received made her swallow thickly with a nod. "After school... well, you're encouraged to move around but some girls go back to sleep because they have nothing to do with their lazy asses, if you'll excuse my French."

One of her nails tapped what looked to be a brick building with four chambers linked to the center, off to the left of the compound. "This is the main living center. It has four pods that the girls sleep in, with a cafeteria in the center and a guard office up top. There _are_ working showers, enough for all of you—daily showering is mandatory, by the way—but you should probably wear shower shoes anyway. Who knows what some of them have. On weekends and after class, you can take place in various workshops or use the gym. Somebody teaches yoga at night if that's your style."

Mama leaned back in her seat and Santana took the map to study it—the compound was fairly small in the end, with only three big buildings and a bunch of staff-only smaller ones scattered about. She _had _promised herself to start working out...

"Dinner is gonna end soon, so you're going to have to wait until tomorrow for breakfast. Ms. Motta will guide you around and show you the ropes... she doesn't look it, but she's a crafty one."

Santana glanced back at the vacant smile and wondered how much of it was just for show.

Mama got up from her seat, packing her files away. "Ms. Hagberg, it's time to show Santana to her room."

The clank of chains from behind her alert her to the fact that the younger girl had also risen—moments later they freed themselves from her wrists and wound up again in the guard's pocket. Motta rubbed her wrists with a pout. "Was that really necessary, Mama?"

The older woman grinned. "Just precautions, Sugs. You know how it is."

They were all lead to the door by Hagberg, stopped only by Mama's voice floating out from the end of the office.

"If you behave, you'll learn to enjoy your stay here, Santana," she promised in a way that sounded more like a warning, and before she could reply the doors swung closed. As they were escorted from the building and out into the open air, her escort turned to her so quick she thought she'd fall over.

"So I've never been a mentor before and I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm totally sure we'll be great friends! I'm awesome and you look pretty awesome too."

Santana eyed her warily; taking her silence as confusion, the other girl grinned. "Oh, right, introductions! I'm Sugar. Sugar Motta, but only Mama uses my last name. I'm kind of an icon around here."

"Wait, wait..." Santana stared at the tiny girl before her. "Sugar Motta? As in, daughter-of-billionaire-tycoon-that-makes-pianos-on-the-side Daniel Motta?"

Now that she can place the face to the name, she's unsure how she missed the connection. Sugar was all over the news a few months ago when she took her father's best Jaguar for a joyride and ended up cementing it into a massive corporate building—her father's enemy, no less. True to American tradition, he'd been sued so hard that media buzz speculated his company would go under. It didn't, miraculously, but his reputation had certainly been compromised.

"That's me!" Sugar said happily, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers as they walked through the courtyard. "I'm the hottest thing in this dump."

Santana scratched her temple in confusion. "Why are you here? Shouldn't your daddy have put you in some cushy lockup in London or some shit?"

"Unfortunately not," Sugar sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes to the sky. "The man who owned the building I broke said that he'd 'take every penny our descendants would ever own' if my dad didn't do something with me. So, instead of being poor like a whole bunch of other people—and probably like you too... oh, sorry, Asperger's—he decided to put me here for a few months so I can say I've learned my lesson."

"Is it working?"

"Not really... it's so _boring_ here when you don't have to fight off being somebody's bitch." At Santana's look of alarm, she laughed. "Don't worry, you'll be okay. Just gotta watch out for The Mack, she likes to torment the new girls. I think she's just angry she sucks."

They could hear Hagberg huffing and puffing behind them, but were unsure if it was a scoff at Sugar's story or just general exertion. Soon enough she halted them with a heavy hand on both their shoulders, wobbling up to a blank, white door. It swung open to reveal yet another long hallway.

"God," Santana groaned as she was shuttled into a little room. "Don't you people have more imagination than this? I'm going to gouge my eyes out any second now."

A pile of blankets were placed in her arms and some sheets, all as white as the walls.

"Good," Hagberg said, pointing her back into the hallway. "Maybe that'll stop you from causing trouble. You're in Pod C."

Sugar stepped in with what Santana assumed to be a pout (it looked like she was having facial spasms more than anything, but she bit her lip and kept quiet). "Can Santana be my bunkie? We don't wanna pair her with Lauren, she'll die!"

The guard rolled her eyes. "She's going to be partnered with Aphasia. Now quit your stalling and get back to your dorm."

Sugar flinched at the name and looked to Santana with a pitying expression. "Sucks for you."

Santana looked at her suspiciously. _What kind of ghetto-ass name is Aphasia?_ They were marched back through a large open area with tables in straight rows—the smell of food wafted through the air and Santana groaned quietly as her stomach panged, having not eaten anything since her appearance in court earlier that day. Various girls were scattered around the room and their voices echoed in a million different directions. Several played cards and shrieked as one slighter girl swept the table with a triumphant shout. She waved her spoils in the air viciously—a can of what looked to be Dr. Pepper—and laughed openly as one of her larger adversaries spouted profanities bad enough to make even Santana look twice. Strangely enough, they all had green or yellow laces in their shoes. Even stranger (or maybe not), only one of them was white—the girl that seemed to have lost her drink.

"That's The Mack." Sugar mumbled as the focus of their attention snarled and stalked away. "Until you make friends, you shouldn't talk to her. She likes to pretend she's tough by terrorizing the younger girls."

Their observation was cut short when Hagberg led them into another room, more enclosed this time, with a maze of drywall barriers cutting through in every direction. She could hear the quiet muttering of a few girls already, slippery with secrets, slithering away as they drew nearer.

"Here we are, Pod C. You get the top bunk, Lopez. Make your bed and soon enough it'll be lights out—new inmates have a bedtime of 8:15."

Santana stared at her so hard she was sure her eyes dried out. "8:15? I haven't gone to bed that early since I was nine."

The first smile she'd seen Hagberg pull came then, and it was at her expense. Typical.

"Guess you've been demoted. Get to it!"

She marched right back out of the room, towing Sugar and her promises to meet up for breakfast behind her. Santana watched them leave with a heavy sigh, absently running her fingers through the thin cotton of one of her blankets. How the hell did she get here? Last night she was sleeping fitfully in the sheets of her _real _bed after hanging out with Puck all day, curled up like a silk caterpillar caught in its own web. Sure, she'd heard stories of prison and the horrors; showering and eating and shanking, always watching your back to make sure nobody jumps on it, weathering the brutality of the staff... but nobody says anything about the sudden, crippling loneliness or unease of being in the wrong place with nobody to rely on. She smoothed down the crisp sheets in her bed, clambering up the little ladder and worming down as far as possible until only her eyes peered out from the blanket. Securing her glasses on a little perch to her right, she glared at the wall in front of her face until the last call went out and the lights shut off for good. A creak underneath her of a body settling in, but by the time her bunkmate had decided to peer up and look, she was fast asleep.

* * *

Santana awoke the next morning to Sugar Motta peering into her face. She grunted and recoiled, smacking her head on the corner of the little shelf and sending her glasses tumbling to the floor.

"Learn some fuckin' manners, Sugar!" she hissed, cradling the back of her head and snatching the offered item from Sugar's hands to slide them back onto her face. She could kind of see her guilty expression but ignored it, worming her way out of bed and stepping down onto the cement flooring. Even through the socks she could feel the cold.

"Jesus," she muttered, awkwardly worming into a long sleeved shirt under her jumpsuit, "I'm freezing my tits off in here."

"Yup!" Sugar replied, ever cheerful. "AC's on the fritz this time of day. Should clear up by mid-morning."

They began their walk to the center of the Pod, where Santana could already hear the raucous laughter of a few girls so early in the morning. Absently, she wondered which one was her roommate. "We going to class today?"

Sugar slid down the banister, ignoring the reprimand from a watching supervisor. "It's Saturday, silly! Only immigrants have class on Saturday." She paused and studiously took in Santana's skin tone before offering an insincere shrug. "Oops, Asperger's."

The whole quad seemed to dim as they came into view; there was the sudden burning sensation of a million pairs of eyes upon her, raking, testing, debating. She bristled and stood up straighter, cursing her glasses once again as she slid them up the bridge of her nose and strode towards the line-up with Sugar unbothered by her side. There were only a few girls still waiting for their food, chatting amicably, though it paused as Santana neared.

"You new here?" one of them asked, smacking an obscenely bright piece of gum. It was reminiscent of Sugar yesterday without the slight cute factor—it made her look like constipated livestock, a fact which Santana could barely hide. The other girl whacked the first one upside the head in annoyance.

"'Course she's new, dumbshit. You ever seen her around before?"

"Don't call me a dumbshit!"

"Well, that's what you are!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Nuh-uh!"

Santana watched in disbelief as they snarled at each other in full view of the whole court, almost coming to blows before the watching supe pulled them apart with a forceful yank.

"No need to show the new kid the ugly, girls. Go get your food."

They grumbled and advanced in the cafeteria line with a sour glance backwards, ignoring Sugar's wave.

"Who are they?" Santana asked, picking up a tray as she passed them. With the bickering stopped the noise in the cafeteria had picked up, surprisingly loud for so few residents.

Sugar shrugged and swiped a carton of apple juice from another girl's plate, disregarding a _Sugs, that gets a girl shanked 'round here! _from an onlooker. "Karla and Keisha. They've been here about two months or so. Basic bitches, both of them."

"Heard that, Motta!" a voice floated from behind the little separation wall, and Sugar simply offered a wide grin with a blown kiss.

They shuffled through the line as they inched closer and closer to their food—Santana attempted to get a good look around at her surroundings, some attempt at weighing her chances with certain groups or something equally as pointless (considering she's been stuck with Sugar, she'll either have an easy time anywhere, or no time at all), but the call of breakfast far outweighed any hopes of her meager attention span. Santana's mouth watered as she came face to face with one of the cafeteria ladies who peered at her hard through her thick glasses.

"You new here?" she asked, shovelling her food into her little containers. Santana saw glimpses of pancakes before she turned to pick something up and brought the container with her.

"Yup," she replied impatiently, tapping her foot as her stomach growled its discontent.

Amused at her desperation, the lady handed over her container and a carton of milk. "Don't let somebody steal it all, sweet cheeks," she warned only half jokingly. "You look like you need it more than they do."

She had half a mind to wonder why people always seemed to be telling her to be careful, but Sugar dragged her from the line and to a table before she could ask. Fork in hand, she flipped open her container and began to bulldoze through her meal with her guide watching on in fascination.

To her surprise, the food wasn't bad. Oh, it certainly wasn't _good_, not like Rita's homemade pies and pancakes were, but it was far more than edible. She'd eaten half her pancakes before she remembered the syrup, and drowned the rest of them in it.

"Are you okay? You look kinda insane," Sugar asked, eyebrows raising as Santana swallowed a few grapes whole. She paused for a moment, glancing up at her, before grunting and going back to her meal.

"Hafnt e'en shince 'unch," she said between a few mouthfuls, barely stopping to breathe. She was on her last pancake and starting to feel full again when a shadow fell over the table—only Sugar's quiet _damn it_ alerted her to the fact anything was amiss. She scowled, forcing the food down as she glanced up at the girl towering over her plate. She recognized her almost instantly as the one that had a fit yesterday when she lost her container of Dr. Pepper.

"What do you want?" Santana snapped, a bit more abruptly than she had intended, hunching protectively over her food like a mothering vulture.

The Mack's eyebrows raised almost mockingly at her tone. "That any way to say hello?" she asked, leaning down upon the table with her hands. Santana didn't miss the way her eyes lingered on her plate.

"Any way is a good way to say hi," Sugar informed them both seriously, shrinking back a little when The Mack fixed her annoyed stare upon her instead. Still scowling, Santana speared her last pancake and began to cut it; however, a large hand pulled her container away from her and it slipped from her fork. She stared at The Mack in disbelief as she popped one of _her_ grapes into her greedy mouth.

"Hey!" she yelled, getting the attention of several other girls who whispered in anticipation between themselves. "Get your fuckin' hands off my food!"

The Mack simply smirked and tore off a piece of pancake. "What you gonna do about it, shrimp?"

She had a point—Santana was small for her age, and The Mack certainly wasn't. She gritted her teeth and her skin heated with that familiar frustration as the older girl slowly placed the pancake piece in her mouth, closing her eyes to relish the sweet syrup.

Snarling, Santana sunk the plastic fork into the back of her outstretched hand.

Even though two of the prongs snapped upon impact it did its job with impressive results; The Mack shrieked and reared back, allowing Santana to rescue her precious pancakes before they splattered all over the floor. A collective chorus of _ooooh_ raised in the cafeteria as The Mack whirled to her, clutching her hand that dripped small rivulets of blood.

At her disbelieving stare, Santana shrugged. "Don't touch my food."

As if summoned, Hagberg came down the stairs into the cafeteria that had exploded into a chorus of raucous conversation upon seeing Santana's reckless stand. She cast her eyes right, then left, flitting over the bloody fork and The Mack seething with rage to Santana, looking so very small despite the snarl on her lips. She sighed and clamped a hand over both their shoulders. "Looks like you're both paying a visit to the warden."

Santana grabbed the remains of her last pancake and stuffed it in her mouth. "So worth it," she mumbled, licking the syrup from her palm. Sugar made to get up, but Hagberg pinned her to the table with a glare.

"Oh no, you're staying there, Motta. For all I know, you good-for-nothin' is what started this damn mess."

"I didn't do anything!" Sugar protested stubbornly, mouthing a _sorry_ to Santana when Hagberg refused to budge. Though she'd known her for all of half a day, going somewhere without a familiar face sent a shiver of apprehension down her spine. The Mack was handed off to the nurse's station after a brief detour; the woman in charge took one look at her and shook her head, almost dragging her in by the ear. She distantly heard a _when will you ever learn?_ before the door closed and she was marched back down that same hallway to the brass-plated warden's door.

"We got a return call, warden," Hagberg said dryly, pushing Santana forward between the shoulder-blades when she hesitated. Mama put down her pen and raised her eyebrows as she was made to stand at the center of the room, arms crossed protectively over her chest.

"You've been in residency for all of, what, fourteen hours, and you've already managed to get into trouble?" She clicked her tongue and wove her fingers together, laying those strong hands firmly upon the table. The gesture made Santana gulp nervously. "What did you see, Ms. Hagberg?" she asked, never taking her eyes of the teen.

"This one put a fork into Mackenzie's hand," Hagberg grumped. "Don't know how she managed with such piece o' junk utensils, but it happened."

"Was she injured?" Mama asked calmly, giving Santana a look that made her want to sink into the floor.

"She was bleedin', but you know her. Make it worse than it is so she gets favourites."

Mama sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose before getting up, crossing the space so she could instead lean on the front of the desk and close the gap left between them. Without it, she felt less imposing despite her taller stature.

"You're not a bad kid, Santana," Mama said, looking at her intently. "Why'd you go and do something like that?"

_You don't know shit,_ Santana thought internally, but decided if _bad kids_ were kids like this Mack girl, then maybe she didn't want to be her kind of bad. "She tried to take my food," she mumbled instead, scowling at the floor.

"Mackenzie did?" Mama prodded, to which Santana grunted in exasperation.

"No, Sugar. Who else?" she snapped, tightening her arms across her chest.

"Watch your tone, Lopez." Hagberg warned, but Mama waved her off before she could take a step forward.

The warden perched upon her desk. "So instead of informing somebody else who could do something, you decided to stab her with a plastic fork?"

Upon retrospect it seemed rather silly, but Santana was not one to back down from her actions. "By the time anybody would have gotten there, she'd have taken my pancakes. It was the first thing to come to mind."

At Mama's intense stare, she ducked her head and murmured, "And I ain't no snitch, either."

_Omertà, Santana. You know what is right and what is easy. _

Warden Washington shook her head in irritation; hearing that phrase one too many times grates on the nerves. So instead of reprimanding her, she twiddled her pen between her fingers and rested her elbows upon her knees. "Here's what's going to happen," she started, prompting Santana to look up for the first time in the conversation. "Because you're so new here and it was a minor incident, I'm not going to ding you, but consider it your warning. You step out of line like that again, and I promise that you won't like the results. You're only here for a month, and it would be a shame to double your sentence because you can't control your temper."

Santana blanched at the thought of staying longer than she possibly had to, and nodded her head furiously in agreement. A hint of a smile graced Mama's lips.

"It's only Saturday, so I suggest you take the time to tour around the facility, hopefully with Miss Motta by your side. Maybe you'll pick up a new hobby."

Santana arched a brow. "Like what? Knitting?"

"Like weightlifting. You're looking a bit on the scrawny side," Mama replied, smirking fully when Santana gaped at her accusingly.

"Did- did you just call me weak?" Santana exclaimed incredulously, resisting the urge to fling her hands out like Giovanni when he gets irritated.

"Did I?" was the reply, followed by an amused, "You can take her back to Pod C, Ms. Hagberg. I think we're done here."

Before she could protest, she was whisked away from the room and down the hallway that was now beginning to become familiar. To her surprise, Sugar was standing there waiting, looking entirely like a lost puppy waiting for its owner to return. Hagberg obviously thought the same.

"I thought I told you to stay put," she grumbled, herding them both back into the cafeteria.

"Breakfast finished and I was bored," Sugar shrugged in reply, looping an arm through Santana's and ignoring her venomous glare with abandon. "Besides, we can go wherever we're cleared to go. See these laces?" She lifted her left foot, which boasted a pair of dirty yellow shoelaces in her tiny white shoes. "Means I can wander around nearly anywhere without supervision. I guess I decided I wanted to go down here for the scenery."

Santana looked at her curiously, noting now that each girl still in the cafeteria wore similar laces—some blue, some yellow. A few were green, and she was currently the only one with white. Sugar read her expression correctly (for once) and smiled, pleased to be of help.

"They show your ranking in the lock-up. White laces mean you're a newbie—that's how they tell a lot of times, that and the fact you don't know what you're doing. Blue means you've been around a week or so and you're out of that beginner stage so you can't blame not knowing for doing something stupid. Well, they say you can't, but I still do." With a surprisingly strong grip on her arm she steered them outside to where the sun was in full force, beating down over the shadeless courtyard. Santana flinched and covered her eyes with her other hand, giving up on freeing her arm from Sugar's iron hold.

"What about yellow and green?" Santana asked, stumbling once or twice over her own feet as she was pulled along. A few other girls roamed about in groups of two or three; some were following the gravel paths, but others were simply spreading out over the grass without much of a care at all. _What kind of prison is this supposed to be?_

"That means you're higher up. Yellow, like me, doesn't really mean you're a senior—I've been here like a month or something, I'm not old—but I guess it means they think they can trust you? I dunno why they didn't in the first place, I mean, I'm flawless. But anyway, I can go wherever I want as long as it isn't staff-only places or with the 'problem girls'."

Her expression gave her away, and Sugar sighed. "Girls that have bigger issues than we do. Your bunkie, Aphasia? She's one of them."

"What did she do?" Santana asked, intrigued, but Sugar glanced around nervously and refused to tell her.

"You'll have to ask her yourself," she muttered instead, tugging Santana along until they arrived at the front doors of a long, squat building that glared at them through two drooping eyes. A long time ago, somebody had tried to paint the brick it was made from, but the colour had long since leeched off, leaving nothing but echoes of a brighter time (a brighter life).

"What's this place?" she asked as she got dragged through the large metal doors, stepping into a short corridor that had a desk shoved into the far corner, a bored looking supe flipping through an old magazine with their heavy, duty-issued boots slung up on the top counter. In the awkwardly constructed space there were pictures at one time; vague impressions of little rectangles hung upon the walls, but somebody had taken them down and neglected to replace them. It made it all seem rather abandoned, almost eerie in the flickering light despite the glaring sunlight outside.

Sugar took her through into a large court where a few girls were playing basketball, a sweat already worked up so early in the morning. Equipment was shoved up upon one wall; worn weights, an ancient looking treadmill, a bench press with a suicidal amount of weight on it. (_Lauren_, Sugar whispered.) Through the only tiny window sat a massive track, surrounded on three sides by razor wire fencing.

"This is the gym," Sugar revealed, like it wasn't obvious. "I have a feeling you're gonna be spending a lot of time here, so I have to get used to the smell of failure."

Santana arched an eyebrow and her new friend grinned, unrepentant. "I heard how offended you were when Mama called you scrawny. That tone means two things around here."

"Which are?"

"Either somebody's gonna get beat in their sleep—though I doubt that unless you have a death wish—or you're gonna do everything you can to prove her wrong. Just don't turn into a bodybuilder... it's really creepy that their muscles have muscles."

Hey, I—" Santana paused and eyed her suspiciously, "how did you hear that? The door was closed."

All she received was an unsettlingly sweet smile.

Sugar checked her non-existent watch, glancing to the door. "I'm gonna let you do whatever it is fit people do, I got a poker game soon. I'm really craving Karla's portion of chips right now, and she always blinks when she's bluffing." She started to walk away before Santana called her back.

"Those laces. You never told me what the green ones mean." Their gazes travelled over to one of the girls playing basketball, her deep green laces a sharp contrast to her white, white shoes.

Her companion shrugged. "Crazy bitches, all of them. Try not to make friends."

Santana stared after her for a long time before she picked up the first of many weights in her life.

* * *

If there was one thing Santana was right about, it was that there was way too much spare time in jail. Saturday and Sunday were spent wandering around the hallways, learning the rooms and different pods, familiarizing herself with the gym and the track. She had always liked to run, sure, but it wasn't a pastime; she'd done more laps in the last few days than she had in her entire life. Monday to Friday was school (who the fuck even goes to school in the summer?) which was an exercise in futility; none of the girls wanted to learn shit, and spent most of their time passing notes or daydreaming. Sugar had secured her a seat next to her, and the two spent their hours communicating with little doodles that grew increasingly cryptic and obscure as the days went by. Afterwards, Santana would spend ages in the gym, watching the other girls play basketball or soccer while she worked out. They never talked to her, and she liked it that way.

The same day she got blue laces was the day she met Lauren.

Well, really, she'd already seen Lauren quite a few times—who couldn't? She was the biggest girl there, and even The Mack knew not to fuck with her. Lauren spent a long time at the gym, too, lifting weights that were probably heavier than Santana would ever be without any effort. Sometimes she couldn't help but stare, and eventually, the older girl took pity on her.

"Shortstack," Lauren called out on a Monday, right as Santana was stretching out, "come over here for a second."

Santana turned her head to glare. "Who the fuck you callin' short?"

Lauren rolled her eyes, placing one large hand on her hip. "Don't start that bullshit with me. I could rip that sharp little tongue right out of your mouth if I wanted."

_Wanky,_ Santana muttered under her breath but got up anyway, walking over to Lauren. Upon standing face to face for the first time, the only thing she could think of was—

"God fucking damn you're big," Santana blurted out, tipping her head back to look at the other girl more fully. Lauren smirked, eyes narrowed through her glasses.

"And you have no idea what you're doing," she replied back, watching in amusement as Santana bristled below her. "I've seen you do a bunch of useless shit 'cause Mama called you scrawny."

"How did you—" Santana paused, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Sugar," she sighed in irritation. Girl couldn't keep her mouth shut to save her life. "Look, what do you want?" she continued in annoyance, "you come here just to insult me?"

Straight to the point... Lauren could appreciate that. "No, I've come to make you an offer." Her lips curled into a smug smirk when Santana's eyebrows raised appraisingly. She'd seen that look enough times. _Go on._ "You obviously wanna get in shape for some reason that I don't really care about, and I know how to make it happen. You listen to me, and you'll be throwing girls like The Mack over your shoulders easy."

But Santana's been around long enough to know that Lauren isn't somebody to offer something out of pity. "What do you want from me?" she asked suspiciously, looking around at the other girls milling about on the court.

"Dr. Pepper," Lauren replied mildly, unblinking when Santana stared at her.

"Can't you get that shit yourself?" Santana asked with a frown. "I've seen it at the commissary all the damn time."

"Unlike you, I'm broke as shit," Lauren said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Not like it even matters, they've banned it after a fight broke out over the last can. There's only one left until the next batch comes in."

Santana sighed. "Why don't you just get it yourself? Ain't nobody gonna mess with you."

Lauren shook her head. "There's only one person that hoards that shit like it's her baby, and I ain't crossing her."

Who would it be? Santana remembered her first day here and the poker game, The Mack losing her precious can of Dr. Pepper in an angry, drawn out match. The winner rubbed it in her face so badly that Santana swore The Mack would lunge over the table and strangle the life out of her.

"Aphasia," Santana said flatly, recognizing the victor.

"Aphasia," Lauren agreed, the dull reflection of the grimy windows obscuring her eyes. She saw the wheels in Santana's head churn violently, a furrow appearing between her brows. _Girl will be a heartbreaker one day_, she noted with mild interest as Santana blows out a huff of air through her nose. _Could be useful._ "Do we have a deal?"

Santana chewed at her lip nervously, rubbing her palms against her thighs. "How long 'till the next batch comes in?"

"Too long," Lauren replied, "and then all you'll have to do is buy it. I don't envy you lifting this one from her."

"Hasn't she drunk it already? It'll be nasty by now," Santana said in confusion, "nothing's worse than flat soda."

"Puking spaghetti into a guy's lap because you tried to give him a blowjob is pretty close," came a voice from behind them, and Sugar appeared from around the corner, not bothering to say hello as she hung from Santana's shoulder and looked up at Lauren through curious and thoroughly unbothered eyes, ignoring the twin looks of disgust. "And to answer your question, she likes to hoard a ton and then drink it all at once to give her, like, a sugar coma or something."

Lauren looked behind them with a frown. "How long have you been listening?" she asked mildly, subtly shuffling back a step.

Sugar shrugged. "Long enough to know you're trying to trick the newbie into stealing a valuable commodity from the resident bad bitch. Figured I'd come help her not get murdered."

"How kind of you," Santana sniped, but the other two had already turned their thoughts elsewhere.

"Now," Sugar started, rubbing her hands together, "I dunno how good you are with planning and stuff, but we have to make sure Aphasia doesn't know it's you. She'll splatter your brains all over the wall and nobody could stop her."

Santana threw her hands up in the air. "Why the hell is everybody so fuckin' afraid of this Aphasia bitch? Lauren could sit on her and break her tits and everything would be great, and I wouldn't have to risk my ass to get some sugar water."

"Rumour has it she got in here for arson because they couldn't pin her with murder," Lauren said in an almost-whisper, side-eyeing the few girls still playing basketball on the other side of the gym. "She'd be doing time in Bedford Hills if the pigs managed to prove it."

_And I sleep above this psycho every night? Fantastic. _

"I say I swipe it and leave it at that," Santana scowled, sitting down on a bench, "she doesn't even know me. How the fuck is she supposed to figure out that I took it?"

"You're really shit at lying," Sugar informed her, "you do this weird eye thing whenever you try."

"I do fucking not!" Santana snapped back, arms crossed defensively.

"See, there it is!"

"Keep your voice down, girlie!" yelled one of the supes watching them, cracking her gum. "This ain't no circus."

Lauren sighed. This was going nowhere. "All we're saying is watch yourself, shortstack. It would be a shame to lose my only shot at Dr. Pepper for a few months."

Santana rolled her eyes so violently Sugar thought they'd fall out. "Yeah, whatever," she grumbled, already turning away to forget the conversation. _Fuckin' morons, all of them. It's like they've never had soda in their lives before._

Yet all through lunch she couldn't stop thinking about it, nor through dinner. She watched Lauren heave massive weights in the air and longed for the same kind of control, knowing it was just at her fingertips if only she would be able to reach it. It haunted her when she lay on her bunk, listening to Aphasia's (who she still hadn't even met) even breathing and knowing that stupid little can was just somewhere below her.

She cracked at three in the morning and began to formulate a plan. What kind of criminal was she cut out to be if she didn't even try? (That's what she told herself, anyway.)

_Step one, gather information._

It was a Monday, so she didn't have much to go on in terms of habits yet. Aphasia's in a different grade than her, so she sat in the back of the classroom, making it difficult to spy on her discreetly without receiving looks from the other girls. She fiddled impatiently with her pencil and replied with short, uninterested notes to Sugar, barely restraining herself from whipping around every time a chair scraped on the ground. Eventually they shuffled out to lunch and she took a spot close to the back, able to watch the whole eating room without having to turn. Sugar sat and chattered beside her, completely unaware.

Her target (she liked the sound of that... like she's prepping for a real job) hung out with The Mack and a few other girls whose names she hadn't learned, but... she really hated The Mack. Like, really hated her. It was obvious in every conversation they shared, every turn of her body towards and away. They sneered when the other wasn't looking and rolled their eyes, projecting a thinly veiled friendliness when they made eye contact. It seemed everybody else in the room knew it too and kept far, far away from the train-wreck waiting to happen.

The same went through Tuesday and Wednesday, but Santana noticed late Wednesday night that Aphasia liked to preen the best she could before her nightly (illegal) poker sessions. She disappeared into the bunks and returned a few minutes later, prepped and ready for a session of destruction and chaos. It was in these few moments that she was separate from the rest of her pack, and it would be when she discovered the missing can.

Curious to note, The Mack also went her separate way just before that.

A plan began to form.

_Step two, scope._

Santana had never talked to Aphasia, and made an effort to be in her bunk by the time she went to go pretty herself up on Wednesday night. With a book that she couldn't even remember the title, Santana had thrown herself up onto her bed and pretended to read with a studious concentration, peering through her glasses at the words that made very little sense in her distracted state. Like clockwork, footsteps rang through the hallways, a minute shuffling moments later alerting her to the fact that her bunkmate had arrived in her room. She kept her attention away, letting herself spare only a glimpse over to see what the older girl was up to.

Really, Aphasia wasn't that threatening. Only a bit taller than her and just as slender, it was the way the other girl moved that projected her intimidation. Shoulders drawn and eyes cutting, she almost _swaggered_ (if Santana allowed herself to use that term, which reminded her way too much of Puck to be cool at all) across the room and began her nightly ritual. Santana looked out for the drink that Lauren wanted so badly, but found nothing except an odd look from her bunkie, with whom she quickly broke eye-contact.

"Girl, you gotta stop givin' me the side-eye," Aphasia spoke up as she was doing... _something_ with her hair, nearly startling Santana straight out of her bed. "You's comin' off as real interested to me."

Santana frowned with bewilderment, turning more fully to face her. "Interested in what?"

"In me, dumbass," replied her roommate, running a hand down her side with a flourish.

"I— what, no!" Santana sputtered, cheeks burning. "I was just wondering... who you're trying to impress," she finished lamely, unable to divulge the real reason of her staring. Aphasia raised an unconvinced eyebrow but let it go regardless, shaking her head as she finished whatever it was she was trying to do. The girls always came up with the strangest and most ingenious ways to create new makeup for use.

"I ain't tryin' to impress no fool," Aphasia rolled her eyes, smacking her lips a few times for good measure in her tiny little mirror, "but them bitches always know who's in charge when they see me lookin' fly as hell. Especially The Mack, that fuckin' cunt. Thinkin' she can take my shit like we friends." She scoffed to herself at that, ignoring the way Santana's mouth tilted into a devious smirk. "Take my word, newbie, you gotta watch them eyes of yours. People'll start thinkin' you want 'em or some shit."

She left Santana fuming again, face so hot it made her sweat. Yet she had a plan, and she supposed she could spare a little humiliation for that.

_Step three, execute._

It was Thursday night, a little ways after dinner. Santana had excused herself from Sugar's presence feigning a headache and made her way to her bunk with her trusty (and still boring as shit) book in her hand, resolutely keeping her eyes forward and away from Aphasia like they wanted. On the way she passed The Mack and was nearly knocked over by her shampoo, a disgusting mix that only she dared use in the shower. It was recognizable anywhere.

(At least, that was what she was seriously counting on.)

Upon entering her room she spared no time in tearing it apart, searching desperately for the little can that would secure her first ever prison transaction. (How exciting, she'd be a proper jailbird!) She pulled up Aphasia's mattress, _her_ mattress, their little dresser and under their little dresser, her hands ghosting along old metal and faded wood. Nothing. She bared her teeth in irritation and flattened herself to look under the bed at the floor, scanning the pristine surface in a desperate effort for something resembling metal. Where the fuck could Aphasia hide the stupid thing? They lived in a fucking shoebox without the coloured walls. She slammed her hand against the bed in anger, cursing when her hand hit something hard in the pillow. It flew to her mouth but her other hand went to it curiously, stuffing her hand in the pillowcase and feeling for the object.

In the end she found it, the coolness alerting her to her prize. Santana drew out that stupid little can with an audible hiss of triumph, short lived as she heard the now-dreaded footsteps in the far hallway. Blanching, she shuffled the pillow back into position and clambered up into her bed, flailing for her book and clenching the can of pop in her sweaty hand.

_Where the fuck do I put it? _Too late to escape, too late to put it in the dresser—which looks tampered with—or the bed—which also looks tampered with. She offered up a disgusted and exasperated _fuck you_ to whichever god put her in this position to start with, and shoved the can into her shirt, laying down flat just as Aphasia made her appearance.

It was immediately obvious that Aphasia was on high alert. She cast her eyes suspiciously across the room; the crooked mattress, the open drawers, the flattened pillow, and finally to Santana perched reading her book. She never took her eyes off the girl on her stomach as she stalked her way to her room and fluffed her pillow, pausing once she realized her precious charge was missing.

"I'm gon' give you five seconds to give it up afore I put my fist through your face," she warned, and it took everything Santana had to keep the tremor from her tone.

"I dunno what you're talkin' about," she responded mildly, flipping a page. At least, she started to before the book was ripped from her hands and cast across the room. She gulped as Aphasia's infuriated face levelled with her eyes _(fuckin' hell she's scary when she's mad)_ and clenched her fists to stop them shaking, her body squirming with discomfort.

"You know _exactly_ what I'm talkin' 'bout," Aphasia ground out through her teeth, "and you got some serious balls, newbie, but nobody fucks with my shit. Especially not my hard-won shit."

Santana raised an eyebrow in an acceptable imitation of Lauren's many dubious expressions. "What, your hoard? Who the fuck would want that? The twins touched that shit, I'd get a disease."

"Then why you sweatin' like a whore in church?" Aphasia accused with narrowed eyes, crossing her arms. Santana swallowed dryly and went for the truth.

"Because you're makin' an exorcist face and it's creepin' me out. You look possessed. Kinda like Sugs when she remembers her purses back home or somethin'."

A smile threatened to grace her bunkmate's lips for a split second, but it erased itself as soon as she grabbed her pillow. "Tell me how you—" A wafting scent drifted about the room, the distinct smell of a too-strong perfume mixed with hand-soap. It was flowery and, frankly, disgusting. Aphasia brought it to her face, her eyes taking on a glazed look.

"That fuckin' cunt," she snarled in disbelief, running out of their room faster than pancake days. Santana held her breath for a few moments before letting out a relieved groan, her head flopping onto the pillow.

_I thought I was gonna die,_ she thought to herself, shifting uncomfortably on her stomach. The sooner this whole ordeal is over with the sooner she can forget that she just willingly hid a can of flat Dr. Pepper between her tits to avoid getting filleted by the resident crazy.

"Prison is fuckin' nuts."

* * *

A week later she had made an alliance with Lauren and the Dr. Pepper shortage had been replenished, restoring some semblance of order to the world inside Taberg Residential Center. Santana had no feeling in her limbs except burning, but her new friend(?) wasn't talking shit when she said she knew what she was doing. She couldn't wait to get out of prison and fuck Puck up with her new-found musculature.

(Okay, fine, maybe she was imagining things a bit right now. Could you blame her? Working out sucks in such a good way.)

Everybody was still talking about the huge blow-out that occurred when Aphasia faced off against The Mack last week, resulting in some fantastic insults and blood-letting being thrown about. Santana had carried herself to the fray and stood silently next to Lauren, pressing the can into her palm. To her credit, she didn't ask how it happened.

Giovanni and Rita had visited her yesterday, enfolding her in a two-way hug the moment they laid eyes on each other. Just being with them made Santana realize how lucky she was that her not-quite-parents were around—Aphasia's dad was never in the picture, Lauren's mom forced her into the whole wrestling gig, Sugar's dad bought her affection with money (not that she seemed to mind). She had a relatively normal household, if you could ignore the whole working for the mafia thing that seemed to shape her entire world.

"How are you doing?" Rita asked as soon as soon as they sat down, leaning forward anxiously in her seat. She worried after all of her kin, and Santana was no exception. "Are you sleeping? Eating? Do they treat you well? What about showering and things?"

Laughing, Santana covered Rita's hands with her own and nodded. "I'm fine, Rita. With the way you guys were talkin' it was like I was gonna walk into some sorta hell, but it's been... decent, I guess. Really boring, and there _are_ a lot of fights here, but except for some of the crazies it's been okay. I'm bunkin' with some bitch called Aphasia who's completely insane."

She proceeds to regale them with the activities of last week, conveniently leaving out the fact that she was the one to steal the can. In a span of twenty minutes they're walked through a day in the life at Taberg, everything from what time they wake up to how many pancakes she likes to get. (She didn't say anything about her first... altercation with The Mack. Why bring up what's already buried?) Even in that cramped little room with the chatter of five other girls, she felt at home. It was a nice change to being constantly out of place in her own skin and surroundings.

"All that fuss over a little shot of soda?" Rita asked in wonderment, her eyebrows raised far up on her brow. "Who would go through the trouble of trying to steal it in the first place?"

"It's important to some people, I guess," Santana answered, desperately trying to not let her eyes float over to Lauren on the other side of the room.

Rita got up to go to the bathroom and Giovanni instantly latched onto his opportunity—he knew what jail was like as well as everybody around them. "Have you made any friends?" he asked lowly, eyebrows raising. _Friends_ in prison were much like _friends_ in the real world... unable to be trusted but useful for your own gain. Santana nodded and discreetly tilted her head to the left.

"That's Lauren," she mumbled, eyeing the girl who seemed to be talking with a scrawny, middle-aged man half her size. "She's helping me lift weights long as I provide her with pop from the commissary."

An eyebrow raised. "Dr. Pepper?"

She grinned. "Ask no questions and I will tell no lies."

"I think that was the most intelligent thing you've ever said to me," Giovanni hummed thoughtfully.

"Hey! I can be smart as fuck when I wanna."

"Now you ruined it."

She huffed in irritation, but he ignored the noise with a smile. "Anybody else?"

Santana looked around; all the other faces are of girls she didn't recognize, people she'd never officially met. She shrugged one shoulder. "I'm pretty tight with Sugar Motta now," she said casually, smirking in delight when Giovanni does a rapid double-take.

"Daughter of—"

"—billionaire tycoon? Yup. She's whack, but I like her."

"Hold onto her, Santana," he said seriously, the glint of the leader she always knew he was appearing in his eyes. The Motta Corporation is so filthy rich that even being casual _acquaintances_ with them will earn her massive standing, let alone friends.

She rolled her eyes, leaning back in her chair and nudging him with her foot. "What, you think I'm stupid? No way I'm lettin' her get away from me. Good thing she's like, stuck to my side. I'm surprised she didn't get in here to say hi to you."

"Bring her to dinner when you both get out," Giovanni offered casually, "I'm sure the poor girl hasn't had an actual friend in her life."

"Who said we were actual friends?"

But all she received was a sly smile, very similar to the girl in question. Before Santana could question him further, Rita was returning, and along with her the call for one minute. Santana felt an acute pang at the thought of them leaving, and she chalked it up to sleep deprivation. She was thirteen now, missing your mommy and daddy wasn't considered very tough. She gritted her teeth as they all stood up, and she was once again crushed in their embrace, fighting valiantly against the stinging in her eyes and nose.

"You only got a week and a bit to go, love," Rita said with a smile, kissing her forehead. "When you get back you can invite Puck and Finn... even Karofsky if you want, and we can all celebrate your return back and you can tell us all about the exciting people you met."

"I dunno if exciting is the right word, Rita," Santana muttered but accepted none the less, escorting them along with the guard to the door. "And I, uh... thanks. Y'know, for coming. It meant lots—um, a lot. Yeah."

"Don't strain yourself," Hagberg piped up from beside them, crossing her large arms over her chest. "Wouldn't want it to look like you were trying to express emotions beside anger, huh, Lopez?" There could have been something like a positive facial expression budding, but it smothered itself before it could come to fruition. _Shame, it would have been a first_.

Santana glared but stood beside her regardless as they left, waving through the little window until they turned the corner and disappeared. She exhaled a shaky breath and stomped away in an effort to escape the guard's knowing eyes.

That was yesterday, and today was spent with the mantra of _one more week (and a bit)_ reeling in her head. Not that she'd ever admit it, but she was looking forward to applying some of the tricks she was taught by the other girls in here, about locks and weapons and smuggling. _What you learn here is all relative, _Sugar had said in a rare bout of wisdom, _everything might not be important, but it's useful. _

Just like Santana overhearing The Mack's way of running drugs by swallowing them. _You need the shit that breathes so it don't clog up your insides, _she had murmured to a few other girls, _keep it nice and flexible. Stops you from backing up and not delivering the goods._

She'd thought it was a decent idea until she was told otherwise.

"You gotta stop listenin' in on what The Mack been tellin' others." Recently, Aphasia had started to talk to her. It hadn't bothered Santana; when not in a murderous rage, the girl brought life and noise into an otherwise repetitive cycle that was any inmate's worst nightmare. Santana hung her head down over her bunk to look at her roommate, raising one finely sculpted eyebrow (courtesy of Sugar) in confusion.

"I saw you listenin' when she was blabbin' to them other bitches about smuggling coke through the gut," the older girl elaborated, "and I'm here to tell you she's fulla shit. If them capsules breathe they crack open in yo' asshole and you got an OD on yo' hands. Do I gotta tell you how embarrassing it would be to die 'cause of yo' ass?"

Santana grimaced. "Do you know anybody who's done that?"

"Girl, I know two."

Santana blanched, but frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, so she's been sellin' them newbies shit this whole time? What for?"

Aphasia brought out a hair brush that she began to use, distractedly trying to make something of her frizzed mane. It was a losing battle. "Nah, she been sellin' them shit cause you be listenin'. She _hate_ you, girl. Ever since yo' tiny little hand stabbed her with that plastic fork, she gon' have it out for you."

Santana scowled. "Why don't she say it to my face then? She scared?"

Her bunkmate snorted, tapping her nails against their metal bed frame. "The Mack? Naw, she a slippery bitch. Don't look it, really, but she got _some_ smart in that stupid skull of hers. If she goes for you, that means she goes for Lauren too... and she don't want that. She get flattened like them pancakes you love so much." She rolled slightly out so she could look at Santana square in the face, her expression oddly serious. "You got a week left in here, newbie. Don't go chasing after stupid bitches you ain't ever gonna see again. You gonna get out and never look back."

Growing exasperated with Aphasia's inability to sort out her hair, Santana swung herself down from above and tentatively sat upon her bunkmate's mattress. Aphasia raised one menacing eyebrow but she willed herself to stay still. "I do this all the time by myself 'cause I'm surrounded by boys," Santana offered, pointing at the brush, "I can get it into workin' condition again. You ain't going anywhere by yourself."

After a moment of silence Aphasia handed over the brush; smirking with victory, Santana rotated around her back and set to work. "So," she started, steadfastly focusing on her work, "what's The Mack's story anyway? Was she always such a bitch?"

"Aw, girl, you offered so you could corner me like this? You sneaky shit!" Aphasia complained but made no move to withdraw her head, instead focusing her grumpy gaze upon the blank wall in front of them. "You know askin' questions like that can get a girl shanked, right?"

"Along with stealin' Dr. Pepper, usin' the last of the soap, and callin' the chef ugly. I get it. Hasn't happened yet."

Aphasia huffed and felt Santana work her magic for a few moments. "All I know is she was caught up in some sorta robbery thing," she admitted after a few moments, "caught time with a bunch of rough bitches. They gone to max security now... I wish The Mack followed 'em in. Fuckin' cunt is a pain in my ass all the damn time. She the one that stole my soda! Denies it, but Aphasia fuckin' knows. Who else wears that disgusting shit she calls shampoo?"

_Me when I'm trying to get you to hate her more_, Santana thought wryly to herself, but kept quiet. In Aphasia's (copious) ranting time, it was wiser to be silent and deflect her wrath onto worthier people. "It _is_ pretty gross," she said mildly in return, "what is it, fuckin' avocado or some shit?"

"Smells like dog shit for sure," Aphasia muttered, "but whatever, she ain't gon' mess with me now that I knocked out a few teeth. Mama don't like her none either, so I gon' get off easy."

"A robbery, huh?" Santana murmured under a breath as she finished her work. "What did she rob?"

Only Aphasia's smirk belied her amusement. "A pet store."

Santana paused. "Like... with animals n' shit?"

"Yup. Cute fluffy puppies and kittens. Apparently one pissed on her 'cause she scared it."

"Serves her right," the younger girl scoffed, "that shit ain't right. Speaking of shit that ain't right, your disaster 'do is fixed. Now you ain't gonna look like The Grudge in the mornin'."

"If only I was that scary," Aphasia sighed wistfully, drawing her tiny little mirror up to her face for inspection. After a tense moment of silence, she nodded in satisfaction and clapped Santana on the shoulder in a way that made her cover a wince. "You alright, Lopez," she said with pleased smirk, gleefully running her hands over her untangled mane.

It was the best thing Santana had heard in weeks.

The buzz went through the compound for lights out; even after adjusting to life in juvenile, the sound never ceased to grate on Santana's nerves. She waited until the guard came in and checked before climbing her way back into her own bed, burrowing herself in the covers before the space was blanketed in darkness. Sliding her glasses off her nose, she perched them on the little stand above her head and closed her eyes tight. In the silence that accompanied lights out, she was hyper aware of the shuffling below her, and the successive pause as Aphasia laid her head down and felt something hard in her pillow. A few mutterings later, she must have pulled out the can of Dr. Pepper Santana had stashed just a few minutes prior, as all of a sudden the hairs upon the back of her neck raised as if she was being watched. She willed herself to remain stationary and finally Aphasia retreated with a disbelieving _sneaky bitch_ sworn under her breath. She hadn't been killed, so Santana deemed the night a success and finally managed to fall asleep.

(It would be the first night she managed to have a decent rest, and would remain that way for the week that accompanied it. On the day of her release Sugar would hug her long and hard and whisper she'd never seen Aphasia so impressed, and right afterwards ask if she ate her out that night.

Santana choked so violently they thought she was having a seizure.)


End file.
